The Al Anon Promises Part 3: Reality and Truth

Well,  I got sidetracked on writing about the Al Anon promises but then when I was looking for something to write I came across a posting of them on an Al Anon forum. I believe that number 3 is next for me, which is....

3. Our sight, once clouded and confused, will clear and we will be able to perceive reality and recognize truth.

I link this promise a lot with the idea of being "restored to sanity". These days I have a moment every so often where I think, "This is crazy and unrealistic. Yet, the people around me all think this is normal." 

I used to get caught up in all kinds of crazy things, mostly because I felt like I had to get along and make things work. I didn't understand that I was confused, or that I did not see reality.

There is one story I sometimes tell at Al Anon meetings because I showed that I was too wrapped up

(Photo by Lena Pautina.)

in alcoholic dysfunction to see what was rational. When I was young I got a job teaching kids in a special summer program. The site that was to host my group's branch of the program pulled out a couple of days before the kids were to arrive and we were left stranded. On that day I sat with my fellow instructors and our supervisor in a local McDonalds as she made lots of phone calls trying to get us another space.

Well, there came a call from a local rec center so we all piled into cars and headed over. Once we were there, the man who ran the place said we could have an upstairs room but the kids in his program would have the rest of the space, including the gym and cafeteria. This room was about the size of a large living room and we had 120 kids with about 5 or 6 instructors. This was in no way a realistic solution...but I did not see that.

I immediately jumped in and tried to get everyone else to see how great this could work. I tried to get them to see that we could group the kids in a certain way and send each instructor into one of the corners or part of the middle. I really thought that this could actually work if we only tried. Though I did not realize it I was thinking that the first option was the only option and we had to make it work no matter what. I grew up in an alcoholic home where I didn't have many choices and I usually just had to work with what I was given. I kept trying to make this situation work, like jamming a square peg into a round hole.

Well, no, my coworkers were saner than I and rebelled. Luckily, another site came through for us and it was so big that all of us instructors even had our own classrooms. (Our Higher Power worked it out for us, despite my meddling.)

So, now it is like a "light bulb moment" when I realize that something is not rational. I know that I have choices and I can take time to decide for myself what is a rational and workable solution. That can often mean not taking the first solution that comes along.  I can respond rather than to react.

You can read all of the Al Anon Promises on p. 269 of From Survival to Recovery or on this web page for a California Al Anon group.