Supporting Fellow Al-Anoners - Al-Anon Family Group

Green Eyes · ~*Service Worker*~

Supporting Fellow Al-Anoners

SerenityRUS · ~*Service Worker*~

Hugs sis .. I find if I'm becoming exhausted listening to someone's issues like that I really need to focus on my own self care. Some people can only take they don't know how to give back emotionally as the dysfunction runs so deep they are just stuck. It sounds like all she really needs is to be heard and healthy validation. Make sure you are taking care of you and have a shield of love surrounding you! Hugs s :)

Debb · ~*Service Worker*~

It is so very hard when you want to help but that the problems that an individual has far outweighs ones abilities. But I have found that even though you thought you did not assist at the present time, somewhere down the road helped in the future for that person. So have heart and be proud that you took the time, for so long, to help this person!!!

Debilyn · ~*Service Worker*~

Sometimes letting go is supportive.Let her figure it out for herself. It will help her grow. Been there, I survived!

grateful2be · ~*Service Worker*~

You asked how you can help her and she said "nothing right now." She's very clear about that. If she needs money to buy gas in the future, maybe your HP will suggest you give it to her and maybe not. There is something called compassion fatigue that can happen in the best of us caregivers which many of us are. When I feel that hit, I limit my listening time to 5 or 10 minutes or not at all. I have to take care of myself first and when I'm feeling overwhelmed by somebody else's issues, I've realized that is because the solutions do not lie with me. That helps me drop their problems from my mind and regroup a bit for my own wellbeing. I'm always amazed at how their HP seems to step in and do things for and with them that I never could have manufactured or predicted for them.

-- Edited by grateful2be on Friday 19th of September 2014 05:51:02 PM

kismetstrand · ~*Service Worker*~

Al-Anon is about learning healthy behaviors in ALL relationships. Sometimes we need to look at whether we are 'supporting' another member or 'enabling' them to continue in their own 'sickness'. We too need to hit bottom in order for real changes to happen. And as with our A's, we cannot work the program for another Al-Anoner. I always find it best to 'talk program' regardless of who I am conversing with, rather than trying to direct (control?) them. That Live and Let Live attitude. Detachment with Love. Growth is individual and everyone has their own path to how they learn.

hotrod · ~*Service Worker*~

I do agree with Kismetstand--- In sponsoring members I did have to learn that the only help I could offer was the tools and principles of alanon. I was responsible to listen to a point, suggest a slogan and prayer knowing that the answers for each member resided within that person We are never to provide money or other support because that would change the spiritual dynamic of the program
As a sponsor I too had to learn to draw boundaries, listen for a given period and then take care of myself . It is truly a fellowship of equals

el-cee · ~*Service Worker*~

I think for me, I know im recovering from codependancy and enabling so i can bring it in to any relationship if im not careful. I think giving anyone money, like others have said may be taking away a learning experience for the person. Alanoners do seem to share that trait of fixing, I learned that it is actuallu wrong and potentially damaging. You dont need to listen to the same sob story over and over, you could have a boundary for yourself, like a time limit and then move away for your own serenity. We are in this program to recover, maybe she is not, that is her path.x

lgnutah · Senior Member

I can speak to this from my own experience. I was going through a tough time myself-i was working in a profession where my job required me to daily try to help families solve virtually unsolvable problems. In my own life, my A's were living lives that i needed to protect myself from emotionally. One of my A family memebers was emailing and calling me regularly to vent about his troubles concerning another family member (who he mostly wanted to badmouth and blame). I finally told him i was emotionally so drained that i could not read or listen to any more about the other family member. I told him if he wrote about that family member i would delete the email as soon as i saw where it was going. I told him i would be glad to talk about other topics, but not his woes regarding the other family member. Well as a result he has taken revenge on me. He denounces me regularly to the rest of the family as unfeeling. But, there is nothing i can do about that.

Newlife girl · ~*Service Worker*~

I think it's nice that you are listening to her...but in my opinion she crossed a line when she said she might need money from you. That is a boundary issue in my opinion. Something to think about.

grateful2be · ~*Service Worker*~

There have been folks who have asked me for financial help and they could do that: Ask. I didn't and don't follow a hard and fast rule on that because there have been times when I, too, was in a financial bind. Although I didn't ask any friends or support mates for money, they saw the need, they saw that I was working hard to raise my children and move out of the mess I was in at the time and they gave to my need for a coat or food or gas to get to work. I see it as me passing on what has been given to me when my HP asks me to do so. The person might not know it is me who is giving and they might. It depends on what my HP wants or doesn't want in any given circumstance or with any living human being.

maryjane · ~*Service Worker*~

I, too, have been asked and usually I say no, but in some cases I have given cash. I always look at it as a gift and not a loan. Then, If they don't pay it back I won't have a resentment that they didn't pay it back. If they do pay it back I have some extra cash....

hotrod · ~*Service Worker*~

Green Eyes,There is a very important reading in the 0TA T , page 120 on this subject. This page spells out the help me should offer to each other.

I, for one would not agree to being a sponsor or to accept alanon calls unless the duties and responsibliites were clearly outlined. I use this page as my guide and explain my boundaries up front.

It states; "what we don't do and should not do is to share one another's burdens- financial or emotional. Sometimes an overeager member with the warm desire to help will assume someone else's responsibilities provide necessities like lending money or advising decisive revocable action. This is not helping."

We help best by inspiring people to think through and solve their own problems. The quote is:"There is danger in taking on another's duties- danger that we may neglect our own and that we may deprive them of what they may learn from finding their own solutions.

Green Eyes · ~*Service Worker*~

Thanks, everyone. All of your posts were very helpful and thought provoking. I'm surprised how my enabling habits have surfaced. That's why I need to keep going to meetings, even if I no longer have my alcoholics in my life. This was a good 4th step for me. Thank you.

The material presented here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method to exchange information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal level.