This is kinda funny to me... last nite I started writing a new topic on the al-anon message board about how I wish people would stop saying they're sorry.

People come to meetings late, and they begin their share by saying, "sorry I was late..." Which irritates me sooo much because if I try my best to be on time and something happened to prevent it, I'm not sorry about it!! I'm not going to say I'm sorry hoping that I'll look like a super person and everyone will like me. Some people are chronically late, and say they're sorry every week, which hardly seems sincere or honest.

It also annoys me on the al-anon board when people begin their post by saying, "I'm so sorry this is happening to you." To me, that is discounting our spiritual lessons. If nothing happens in God's world by mistake, how can I say I'm sorry you have to go through this?! Is that not saying, I know better than God?

After I had written the post, I asked myself what my motive was for writing it. I realized, I want people to change. I decided it was none of my business. I erased my post. I know that not everyone is going to like me or my recovery. I know that there were some in my early recovery that grew impatient with me, that I wasn't "getting it."

All I can say is that my first sponsor was a wonderful model for me... she let me be where I was. She helped me believe in a HP that was unconditionally loving, I was always acceptable as-is. Not that she never said things to me like, "Oh my god, we need some cheese to go along with all this whine!!!" We laughed together, and I "got it."

I need al-anon because.... people just don't act the way I want em to!!!!

Whose problem is that?!

PC, I think that a lot of these one time posters come looking for validation about what they've already made up their mind about. When they see comments to the contrary, their ego tells them to get the heck out of here.

Others, I think post in the middle of the night, when they are feeling like that want out, or the next morning after some displaying some unacceptable behavior, feeling guilty. Later that day or the next, they feel better and probably don't even think twice about coming back here. That's why I try to limit my first comment, till I see them interacting with the thread.

What makes me chuckle is when some other newcomer bumps a one time posters thead, that's been idle for a couple of weeks/months.

Every once and a while someone will come up to me in a meeting and say, "I want
what you have."   I of course for clarification ask back, "And what part of me is that?"
Almost always they report that I never seem to get affected by the crazy stuff that
goes on in or around the meeting.  Mostly the askers are fellows in AA.  I tell them
that I understand "Admitted I was powerless" from a couple of different angles and
that they would have to know more about my recovery.  I don't distract a member of
AA from their recovery unless we are in private and his/her story suggest they might
get additional support somewhere else.

I was taught that if someone is doing something that disturbs my peace of mind
and serenity it is I who have the problem and not a solution.  I will keep the problem
as I justify I should and the problem will become me.  Happens all the time...sucks...
could lead to more severe outcomes/consequences if I don't humbly run to my
sponsor who won't offer me any cheese.  Glad our sponsors might have been related.

Eating crow isn't bad...just pull the feathers first otherwise it taste just like chicken.

Great thread.

I am guilty of not having posted in a while. I got my 90 day chip yesterday. I have a sponsor, have been going to meetings daily & am working on step 4. Seen a lot of people "go out"... some come back, some don't. I like what Gladlee said... "people just don't act the way I want 'em to." I can accept that. Sometimes people do or say annoying things in meetings, but I have yet to walk away from a meeting without having learned something.

Good thread and good sharing, thanks!

I suppose if I knew why some ppl pop in and then pop out to never return I wouldnt be here.

Thanks for starting this tread PC.  I've been taught that this shows me things not to do.  In meetings, on this board or with my sponsee's.  Watching their actions and results teaches me what doesn't work.  In reverse; I can watch the ones that really have a willingness to get better, see their life change and what they're doing.  Lessons from both sides. 

Congrats on 90 days Posey. That was a real turning point for my sobriety. I took me 27 months of going to meetings to get 90 days.

There it is

I work with alcoholics for free and for fun, and with no expectations, and I do it for me, I do it for my Program, the moment I get invested in the results it's the fast track to qualifying for our sister program started by Lois

It's learning the difference between unconditional love and codependent controlling and "love with strings", and it's covered masterfully in the third step

we decided to turn our will and our life over to God as we understood Him. Just what do we mean by that, and just what do we do?

The first requirement is that we be convinced that any life run on self-will can hardly be a success. On that basis we are almost always in collision with something or somebody, even though our motives are good. Most people try to live by self-propul sion. Each person is like an actor who wants to run the whole show; is forever trying to arrange the lights, the ballet, the scenery and the rest of the players in his own way. If his arrangements would only stay put, if only people would do as he wish ed, the show would be great. Everybody, including himself, would be pleased. Life would be wonderful. In trying to make these arrangements our actor may sometimes be quite virtuous. He may be kind, considerate, patient, generous; even modest and self-sacrificing. On the other hand, he may be mean, egotistical, selfish and dishonest. But, as with most humans, he is more likely to have varied traits.

What usually happens? The show doesn't come off very well. He begins to think life doesn't treat him right. He decides to exert himself more. He becomes, on the next occasion, still more demanding or gracious, as the case may be. Still the play does not suit him. Admitting he may be somewhat at fault, he is sure that other people are more to blame. He becomes angry, indignant, self-pitying. What is his basic trouble? Is he not really a self-seeker even when trying to be kind? Is he not a victim of the delusion that he can wrest satisfaction and happiness out of this world if he only manages well? Is it not evident to all the rest of the players that these are the things he wants? And do not his actions make each of them wish to retaliate, snatchin g all they can get out of the show? Is he not, even in his best moments, a producer of confusion rather than harmony?

Our actor is self-centered, ego-centric, as people like to call it nowadays. He is like the retired business man who lolls in the Florida sunshine in the winter complaining of the sad state of the nation; the minister who sighs over the sins of the t wentieth century; politicians and reformers who are sure all would be Utopia if the rest of the world would only behave; the outlaw safe cracker who thinks society has wronged him; and the alcoholic who has lost all and is locked up. Whatever our protest ations, are not most of us concerned with ourselves, our resentments, or our self-pity?

Selfishness, self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles. Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity, we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate. Sometimes they hurt us, seemingly without provocation, but we invariably find that at some time in the past we have made decisions based on self which later placed us in a position to be hurt.

So our troubles, we think, are basically of our own making. They arise out of ourselves, and the alcoholic is an extreme example of self-will run riot, though he usually doesn't think so.


It doesn't matter whether I think "my motives are good" or not, the moment I become interested in running someone else's life, the moment I start thinking I know "what's best" for another person, the moment I start telling people "what they should do" and start giving advice, rather then share experience, I am "running the show", therefore I am playing God

I call that "The Good actor Blues" because although I THOUGHT I was "helping others" really what I was doing was being self centered and taking the focus off myself by taking other peoples inventories and putting my focus on the wrong doings of others, real or imagined, and I felt "justified" because my motives were good, but as Shakespeare said "Down that road lies madness"

I did that and was MISERABLE until one day this caught my eye, it leapt out at me in neon

In trying to make these arrangements our actor may sometimes be quite virtuous. He may be kind, considerate, patient, generous; even modest and self-sacrificing.

What usually happens? The show doesn't come off very well. He begins to think life doesn't treat him right. He decides to exert himself more. He becomes, on the next occasion, still more demanding or gracious, as the case may be. Still the play does not suit him. Admitting he may be somewhat at fault, he is sure that other people are more to blame. He becomes angry, indignant, self-pitying. What is his basic trouble? Is he not really a self-seeker even when trying to be kind? Is he not a victim of the delusion that he can wrest satisfaction and happiness out of this world if he only manages well? Is it not evident to all the rest of the players that these are the things he wants? And do not his actions make each of them wish to retaliate, snatching all they can get out of the show? Is he not, even in his best moments, a producer of confusion rather than harmony?

There I was in all my glory, a self centered man trying to "run the world" trying to tell others what they should do, I thought I had changed but the truth was I was even sicker then before in many ways, I thought I was helping others but the truth was I had just got a new script, I used to be this, but now I am that, I dressed up all my bullshit in "helping others" but that wasn't really the truth, it was an escape, it was a way for me to keep the focus off myself, if I could focus on what everyone else was doing wrong I didn't have to look at myself

That's why my sponsor explained to me if I am taking other peoples inventory other then my own I am doing the exact opposite of what the program actually is, by the very definition of the program, I have literally slipped into a serious mental illness that leads to a relapse, which eventually in both cases for me it did, because I had become selfish and self centered again

I have fallen into this trap twice in my life, both for a few years, and I have never been so unhappy and twisted in all my life, as when I ran around thinking I was "doing good" but my "love" had strings, which quite frankly made it not love, it made me a man who kept score, controlled others, and had a price tag

Sure I will help you, but YOU NEED TO DO THIS IN RETURN

It was awful

So for me it's not what "newcomers" do that is important, it's not what the people around me do in all their sick glory, it's how I handle it, it's how I can successfully navigate life without getting sick, codependent, or relapse with alcohol, and the only way I know how to do that is by not having expectations of those around me, since one thing I have discovered is if I base my happiness on what other people do, ESPECIALLY if it requires them to change, I am setting myself up for the most painful, the most excruciating, the most confusing fall ever, because I will fall and blame them all the way down, this goes for family members, relationships, professional relationships and even the still suffering alcoholic in AA that does the dump and bounce

It's not their behavior I should pay attention to, but my reaction to it, my resentments, which have the power to actually kill, why is it I have the resentment?

the answer to that surprised me

-- Edited by LinBaba on Wednesday 19th of January 2011 11:24:11 PM

pinkchip wrote:

---

I know you get disappointed in people not working the program lin...we are human. But yeah...I shouldn't be so invested in what others do. It's a fine line between spreading the message and tryng to slam the message down peoples throat like I do sometimes.

---

no no it's not disappointment, I too am human, and I also share this fault, it's just this was probably the most important lesson I learned about step 3, i had NO idea I was using supposed good motives to make myself sicker then I had ever been, this is about me and what I learned, not what you should do, I just read your other post and realize you are also coming up on this lesson, it is a BRUTAL one, scratch one of us and find a codie.....Aquaman is also seeing it in himself, the road to hell is paved with good intentions is THIS exact thing

It's learning that trying to run the world with good intentions is just as unhealthy as doing all the supposed "bad stuff", even though "my motives are good" what usually happens is I think the world isn't treating me well, I get angry and indignant, so on the next occasion I get more gracious, and it still doesn't suit me, admitting I might be partially at fault I am sure others are more to blame

This is where I learned that this was the basis of why I was so selfish and self centered, but I was confused because I thought I was "doing it for others", when the truth was I was doing it for myself, I was so pathologically self centered I couldn't even begin to see it, just like all alcoholics, I thought selfish meant greedy, and I thought self centered just meant I thought about myself all the time, I was completely uninformed and wholly ignorant of what those qualities truly meant, I was selfish and self centered because I was trying to run the world, -you- were doing it wrong, and it was killing me, this was the underlying illness behind the "terrible twos" that was killing me, and I couldn't understand why my suffering was so acute especially since other people were the ones "doing it wrong"

every time my suffering has become acute and constant in sobriety, the answer was in step 3, and 99% of the time it was in the portion of step 3 I call the good actor blues, relationship suffering? the good actor blues, family of origin issues? the good actor blues. but my suffering was acute and constant because although I would admit I was somewhat to blame, I thought other people were more to blame then fwoop slippery slope straight to insanity, losing step 3, and terrible suffering

Selfishness, self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles. Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity, we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate. Sometimes they hurt us, seemingly without provocation, but we invariably find that at some time in the past we have made decisions based on self which later placed us in a position to be hurt.

So our troubles, we think, are basically of our own making. They arise out of ourselves, and the alcoholic is an extreme example of self-will run riot, though he usually doesn't think so. Above everything, we alcoholics must be rid of this selfishnes s. We must, or it kill us!

The answer has never not been step 3 for me, I just need to look at it with new eyes, eyes that examined my supposed "good intentions" that were the direct cause of my suffering, so what I had to do was another step 4 that JUST concentrated on the good actor portion of step 3, this is why I stress that step 3 can't be learned by doing step 3, but by doing the subsequent steps, we don't have the necessary information how to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God while we are busy playing god, it just doesn't work, it's like trying to use a pressure washer to get water off a porch, the more we bombard our self will with self will, the more self will we have flying around, it's a mathematical impossibility and a painful conundundrum thats leads to incredible suffering, we can't cure self with self, it just. doesn't. work.

 

-- Edited by LinBaba on Thursday 20th of January 2011 11:11:01 AM