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.
I was at a meeting of my home group this past Thursday night that leads me to write this. There was a newbie at this meeting, for whom it was their 3rd meeting. This person had been in a situation the night before with their "A" that had upset them very much. This happened at midnight.
The person desperately wanted to talk to someone in the program, but was too worried about calling so late. Afraid that they would upset the person for waking them up.
Those of us there tried to reassure this individual that it is never to late for an Al-Anon call. For those of us who give out our numbers at meetings and are willing to accept calls, anytime you need to call is the right time. Such a call is nothing less than a "meeting between meetings"! It may take the person, a moment to wake up and clear the cobwebs....but...please know that your call is important to both you and the person you are calling.
I wouldnt expect a call at 3 am to say "Hi, I'm doing great". But, when we need help, sometimes we need it now! Not tomorrow when someone wakes up.
Of course those of us who come online here are fortunate to have the chatroom which is open 24/7. And there is almost always someone in there we can talk to. But if not, dont hesitate to call someone who has given you their number.
That night when I got home from that meeting, while I slept, a storm rolled in. I was awakened at 3:30 in the morning by the sound of water falling off my roof outside my bedroom window and the sound of thunder in the distance. When I looked at the clock to see the time, I was momentarily annoyed to be awakened.......but this lasted only a second. The rain was much needed here where I live, as it has been so dry. I lay back for a moment and listened to the sound of the rain falling on the roof and the thunder and felt so much peace! I said a little prayer thanking my HP for providing us with the rain and for waking me so that I might enjoy it! Then drifted peacefully back off to sleep.
Those calls are like that storm. They can cool us off when were hot, and help the seeds of recovery we are planting in ourselves to grow.
exactly what we all need to hear. Thank you so much. I need so much to hear that people are submitting to the HP because i don't see it in chat sometimes I see the opposite. Thank God for you and all who work the program.
Hello David , so glad u posted that I totaly agree with you. My sponsor was wonderful never gave me a problem when i called late so i have been able to pass that along to my sponcees. Thank u so much for sharring that thought with others. Louise
Being fairly new to the program, i needed to hear that. Being the way I am I have yet to even share at a f2f much less ask someone to sponsor me. I sometimes want tocall someone from my group but am very wary of asking for help , probably out of fear. It is reassuring to know that people are there for you no matter what.
Last night when I found my husband locked in the car with all of the windows up and closed and the car on and knew he had been there for three hours...I could have really used a good friend's phone number that I could call...who would understand.
I really did not know what to do, it was horrible. He has threatened me for years that I BETTER NOT EVER call an ambulance for him or take him to the emergency room if it is anything connected to his drinking...he thinks I would only do that so that I can "legally" label him an "alcoholic" so I can "slander" him and "smear his name". The depth of his denial is unfathomable.
This puts so much stress on me it is unimaginable...what if I took him to the hospital and he was alright and then had his blood alcohol level on the charts? And I have to go home with him???!!!! EEECK!!!! I don't think I would live through that.
And, on the other hand...what if he really needed medical help and I was too scared from his threats to take him? Would I be responsible if anything happened to him? Would I be implicated somehow? How do I know if he is just knocked out drunk (as usual) or knocked out from the CO2? Only another alononer would understand this dilema I am sure.
I would never know as he drinks so much he is really comotose many times. Once, we had a gas leak from our stove and were unable to rouse him. My daughter and I screamed, punched, kicked, and pinched him like you would not believe, all the while opening windows and turning on fans. NOTHING worked, he was dead to the world. We screamed as loud as we could in his ear, did everything we could. We had to leave him in the house while we evacuated. All we could do was pray for him after we opened up all of the windows and turned all fans on. No wonder my daughter is a nervous wreck!
This level of stress is very hard on us...it is nice to know we are not alone in this and that we will now have helping hands to help us out of this misery after finding alanon.
Isabela
PS would you mind giving me your phone number? I have not yet made it to a F2F meeting, they are hard to find in my rural area.
I hope you read my reply. I would like your input. I had a phone list from my f2f group. This one man had given it to me and encouraged me to call the people on the list and reach out. This is the man I will talk about below. I had called a few people to test the water: man, woman. They were short calls. There was one person at the group that I connected with whose daughter's situation was almost identical to my daughter's situation. During one of the worst nights with my daughter, I waited up all night to call him in the morning at a resonable time. He was out of town. Fine. At the next meeting he approached me and asked if it was me that called. I said yes. He proceded to inform me that it is best that a woman does not call a man's house etc. etc. All I could do was to start crying and sobbing. I was brand new and in crisis. I said,,excuse me I need to leave. Thank goodness the meeting hadn't started and people did not see me crying except a few coming into the meeting outside the room. This man followed me to make sure he didnt cause me to cry. I said, no, it is okay I am upset and need to go. I was so emabarassed! And, I was so unhealthy back then too and brand new to alanon. I never went back to that group or the other ones he goes to. Not my loss. I have gotten so much out of this online room. I did go to another f2f though and found support there.
I realized later when I got healthier and had so much support from people here that there was fault in what he did and I should not have felt embarassed. Why did he give me the phone list and encourage me to call people on the list and not explain that only women should call women. Why did he put his name on the phone list for all to call and not indicate that he did not want women to call him? Well, that did help for me to heal over this hurt. I had another episode happen later with someone that was standing there too. I wondered why this female did not call me to see if I was okay since my name was added to the phone list and she had access to it? She seemed so concerned at what was going on?
I still wonder about that person? Why did this person not talk to me when I met her at another support alanon group either instead of treating me like I did something wrong? Afterall, this person was an old-timer etc. I had to finally let go and let god. Maybe this all happened for me to hang on to MIP. I am not sure. All I know is alanon is not the all healthy place that somtimes we or others think it is. Do I call anyone from alanon at odd hours of the night since then? NO, I do not. I do come here though to see if anyone is in the room or post on the board for support. I know you would not have turned down my call David. I wish there were more out there like you. :) But for me, I have my new boundaries about calling people to help me and keep me safe. When I need someone in the odd hours of the night and no one is here online, I go to my HP. Boundaries are here to make us safe. Sure, I wish this never happened and things could have been different. I don't know if this man ever talked to this other member that could have chosen to call me to see if I was okay. But I did learn a lesson. Not all in alanon are people who we can open up to and trust. I do not have control over what others may say about me. I have no idea what this man said to this woman that was there to witness this. But, what they think about me is none of my business. I had alot of hurt through this episode at my f2f and here online. I am stronger because of it is all I know. Well, maybe I don't need your input afterall :) Maybe I just needed to share my own personal experience. your friend in recovery, ,cdb
Oh, I see, SIGH, once agian I did something "wrong".
I did not know that women are only allowed to call other women, sorry David...
I can see how this makes sense though, if a man was married and another woman called him in the middle of the night, well, I can certainly see how this would be a HUGE problem.
Thanks for helping me to see the sense in this rule, I just wasn't thinking, sometimes I think it is helpful to have another man's opinion as they could better understand my DH and his responses. When we first got married a lot of stuff he thought and said I thought were totally nuts, then I talked to other women and found out it was just "man" stuff and they all do it, so, they are all "nuts" and men say that woman are hard to figure out! LOL! Just kidding here...
Anyway, IF my DH ever went to AA (and this is the biggest "IF" in the world) and a woman called him ever, especially in the middle of the night, I would lay right down on the floor and have a cow, LOL. No way would I stand still for this. I know we are supposed to be all modern and pretend like this is OK and all people have the best of intentions...but...at my age I have just seen that too often this is a recipe for trouble. I was thinking it would be OK with David since he probably does not live anywhere near me...still...it is breaking the rules which I DON'T want to ever do.
Hmmmm.....First, I dont know of any "rule" that says men can't call woman or that woman can't call men to get help. It may be that some groups suggest this and I am not saying that it isnt a good policy in large groups with plenty of members of both sex, because I understand the need to protect ourselves from those in the world who might take advantage of our emotional condition, but I know in my case I am currently the only male which attends the two ftf meetings that I do, so I'm glad there is no hardfast "rule". I can see that it could be potientially a problem maker for some people if they have a spouse that doesnt understand.....but as you say cdb, if someone doesnt want to recieve those kinda calls for whatever reason...dont put your name on a list or specify "male" only, etc. What the man said to you cdb was possibly "right" by his groups suggestion, but he might have been able to correct his error in giving you his number in a way that didnt make you feel like you had done something wrong, which of course you hadn't.
Don't know what MIP's feelings are on this subject...but in all reality...if its 3 am and I'm dying inside and I need to talk to someone in recovery and the only person's number I have or feel like I can trust is of the opposite sex...I'm callin'.
I don't know of any rule either. I had called some men before too and asked if it was okay if I called them since this group was mostly men. They said it was fine,,no problem. Thus, when this other man said that women should call women, etc. it confused me. I do agree if the person wants a same sex person to call them, specify on phone list or don't put their name on a list with women and men. I do not think this is a rule either. My daughter did say in AA that she had a temporary male sponsor and that it was okay if you could not find a woman. But, they could only meet in a public place and not talk about intimate issues. That sure made sense to me. Thanks for your reply david :) cdb
Well, something to remember is that we are all in this program because we are sick. If we were all perfectly OK and always took things the right way, never blew things out of proportion, never had trouble communicating effectively, we wouldn't need the program. When someone in alanon deals with things in a way that is hurtful, I find it helpful to remember that they too are IN recovery, not DONE recovery.
We had some threads a while ago about 13th stepping, and the 'rules' about cross gender calls and sponoring are there to deal with that. We are, most of us, very vulnerable and in a lot of pain. It is very easy, in situations like that, for male/female relations to get overheated. Some groups have rules about it for just that reason. We don't want to be hurting people worse, when we meant to help them. We have also had threads recently about how easy it is for us to seek comfort in fantasy and inappropriate relationships, when our marriages are so painful. To me, it seems very possible that a male/female alanon friendship could develop into something very messy, that could further complicate the lives of some unhappy people. Not just possible, but very natural. None the less, not a good thing.
There were times for me, when I was a beginner in the program, that I had various alanon traditions and 'rules' explained to me in ways that I found a little hurtful. Thinking about it later, though, I wonder if there was a way that would NOT have hurt me - I was so vulnerable, and so used to finding insult and pain in everything. Actually, people were very gentle - the problem was that I was so raw that it was not possible to be so gentle that I didn't hurt. I saw rejection everywhere, even where it did not exist.
Alanon is teaching me that I can face my pain and discomfort, that I can say to someone "I'm sure you didn't mean to hurt me, but from my point of view, that was a hurtful statement". This doesn't only make me stronger, but also hels the person I am talking to realize how their words could be taken. Usually, they apologize, and I realize that they indeed did NOT mean harm.
cdb, I bet if that happened to you now, you would not run away. I have seen you stick up for yourself here on the boards, explaining why you don't agree with something.
All of that said, David, I thought your original post was beautiful and inspirational. I don't use the phone nearly enough, with all my big talk, I am still so shy and so sure that nobody really means it when they say "Call".
