Sponsorless

I didn’t have to make the decision, to ask or not to ask. My sponsor-to-be was not at tonight’s meeting. Of course I felt “Darn! I was ready to ask her.” When in reality, I don’t think I was, but given that the opportunity didn’t present itself, it was easy to be all confident about what I would have done. Guess God was giving me an opportunity to pray about it.

The meeting was a speaker meeting. The speaker was a member of AA who has done two stints in prison and told his story while wearing a house arrest anklet. I could alternately hear the pain and the joy in his voice as he recounted his addiction and his serenity. The way he described some of his feelings was exactly the way my husband has spoken of his own addiction. As he told his story, I realized that I was not sitting in judgement of what he had done in his past. Why do I find it so hard to avoid judgement when it comes to my husband’s own struggle with alcoholism.

After the meeting, I made it a point to speak to a couple of people. And I had arrived a few minutes early to help set up chairs and materials. Both of these activities seemed to have worked to make me feel more welcome at the meeting and more as though I belonged.

Maybe next week, I’ll have a sponsor and will finally be a real rabbit! (Velveteen Rabbit, anyone?)

Do I have the guts?

Tonight is Al-Anon night again. For the third week in a row, I’m going feeling like I need to ask someone to be my sponsor. Also for the third week in a row, I know I’ll probably chicken out.

I have someone picked out. I’m not sure why I think she’d be a good sponsor. I know she’s been in the program for 8 years. I know that her alcoholic is sober. I know that she is serious about the program and seems to do a lot of reading about recovery.

But what if I ask and she says no? I’ll be so embarrassed. I’ve considered other people in this group, but I always come back to this same woman.

The only thing I haven’t done is pray about it. Maybe I should give it another week.

Hello? Do you see me?

I went to Al-Anon again tonight and left feeling pretty lonely. I go to the meeting, sit down in the group. Listen, offer a little of where I am when the discussion comes to me. And then at the end of the meeting, everyone gathers in small groups of 2 or 3 to visit…and no one talks to me.

No one asks how things are going at home? If I enjoyed the meeting? Do I attend other meetings? In my mind, I want to consider this my “home” meeting, but isn’t home somewhere you feel wanted?

I’ve got enough Al-Anon under my belt to know that I shouldn’t be pointing the figure at what other group members are or are not doing and need to be looking to myself for a solution. I should engage others in conversation. I should tell someone personally what their comment meant to me.

But truthfully, I want to be taken care of. I want someone to reach out, pull me in and shepherd me through these first months of my own recovery. Is that too much to ask?

Still hiding

Wow. It’s been almost a whole month since I’ve posted on this blog. Not coincidentally, it’s been almost a whole month since I’ve been to Al-Anon, read One Day at Time and gone to couples’ counseling. I know that none of the above is good for me or for my relationship with dh, but it’s so much easier to coast along as if all is well.

DH moved back home a couple of weeks ago, and overall, I’d give the experience a B. We’ve had some adjustments to make, but in general its been good. In addition to allowing myself to hide out and pretend that “wife of an alcoholic” is not one of the roles I play in life, I’ve watched him let his own program slide some. He went from 5-6 meetings a week when he was living in the halfway house, to 2 meetings this week.

The ease with which I’ve let this all go makes me think that I really should find a sponsor, someone who will keep me accountable to my own recovery, regardless of what dh chooses to do or not do. But the prospect of actually asking someone to be my sponsor is scary. There are two women at my Al-Anon meeting who I know b/c dh is friends w/their dh’s thru AA. I’m not sure I want to be tied in that close — seems like it might be one big, messy, in-bred web. But who else would I choose? Hmmm….I’ll have to think about that.

I’ve also found a second meeting that I think I could go to, at least most weeks. It’s during the day, so I’ll need to block the time on my calendar. But it’s not too far from the office. Going to a new meeting seems really scary, though. The one I do attend (most of the time), I went b/c some ppl I know told me about it and I knew they’d likely be there. To choose one off a piece of paper and just show up, well that’s a whole different story.

It’s much easier to just stay hidden.