Al-Anon’s Tradition 7

Al-Anon’s Tradition 7 - Every group ought to be self-supporting, declining outside contributions.

Over the weekend I was looking through my notebooks for some ideas I wrote down during different Al Anon meetings about Tradition 7. In this tradition are the obvious points—that Al Anon members should contribute to keep the meetings running without having to take from anyone who could compromise the recovery of the group members. But, I also found a few notes that related directly to my personal situation as of late.

(Photo by Paola Viveiros.)

As I’ve mentioned in recent posts, I know that I tend to become too emotionally dependent on my boyfriend. I was looking over the chapter on Tradition 7 in Paths to Recovery. In the “Member’s Share” section (p. 198 of the 1997 edition) an Al Anon member wrote, “I need to be self supporting socially, spiritually, emotionally, mentally and physically. I can not depend on another person for my happiness.”  That rings true to me lately. Even though I am an adult and would never consciously try to make someone make me happy, I realize that when I am not willing to use my own skills I depend on someone else to give me an unreasonable amount of support.

Lately I have been going backwards a bit. This dissatisfaction I have with my sponsor and my former home group is pulling me down. However I have a break from this hectic summer coming up and I think that when I get this breather it will be a nice time to take stock. If the people around me cannot emotionally support me in the way that I demand I have to pull back and think of more constructive ways to do things. If finding a new sponsor is too overwhelming for me at this time I can talk to other members who have reached out for me.

Notice that I say that I can, not that I will. This stuff is often a lot harder than it looks, especially since I can be so resistant to change. Other observations in my Al Anon notebooks mention, “trusting yourself” and “protecting our spiritual growth”.  Because I grew up with alcoholic parents I didn’t learn to do any of these things. Being too heavily dependent on one person can stop me from seeing other viewpoints that may help me and I won’t trust myself to make a decent decision. While money is often focused on for tradition 7 (and rightly so as it is an important issue) I choose to see it as relating to my emotional independence.