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.
Yesterday marked 8 months since I walked into the rooms of AlAnon ready to find my own recovery. I have spent a lot of time bouncing back and forth between steps 2 & 3 primarly because I have such a difficult time putting all of my faith in my HP. I had been making remarkable headway in the past couple months, and then was thrown a curveball this week that has gone a long way to unravelling a lot of that progress.
On Tuesday morning I learned that one of the members of my home group took his own life on Monday. He was only 50, and left behind a wife and 3 children, the youngest 15. I didn't know him well, but I knew him well enough. We shared the same sponsor, and he was a regular attendee to the same meeting. He recently was a 10 minutes speaker at an open meeting our group hosted, and his comments touched my wife deeply ... more than any other AlAnon speaker she has heard. It certainly appears a HP was working through him that night. How could that same HP have been at work on Monday?
I have spent a lot of time trying to understand how regain the trust of a HP I want to, and need to, turn over so much of what is beyond my control to. I see 3 children who have had thier father ripped from thier lives. I see an A wife, who my wife shares meetings with, who within the last couple of months returned to recovery after a relapse, having to try to manage her disease through such a traumatic loss while also providing her children with the love and support they need in the wake of this tragic loss. My sponsor has spent sleepless nights all week questioning why he didn't see it, or what he could have done to help prevent it. Our local AlAnon community, beyond the groups he was a regular attendee too are so shaken and confused.
It is just impossible for me to find the hand of any kind of HP in any of this right now ...
Suicide is difficult for us to understand. You don't have to have all the answers today nor does your sponsor. I know of people who took their lives without anyone realizing there was a problem. Sometimes that is the most difficult part of it all: the NOT KNOWING. I have no words just know that every one of us has been touched by suicide at some point in our lives and I truly believe we all have felt the same: questioning the existence of a God, wondering WHY, being angry at God and even the person who took their life. Healing will come along with the understanding that some questions in life may always go unanswered.
Sending you support and love today. I will pray that his wife continues with her recovery and that the rooms of AA and Al Anon give her the peace and comfort she needs.
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Never grow a wishbone where your backbone ought to be!
Dave - I too am sending you support and love. So very sad and so difficult to understand. Death and suicide are two items that can shake my faith - so very hard to understand and 'see' how HP can allow events like this. I have had to move on in spite of not understanding or getting closure - otherwise, I stay sick and stuck.
My heart goes out to your group, your sponsor, the family and all who are affected by this. Keep coming back and we're here for you!
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Practice the PAUSE...Pause before judging. Pause before assuming. Pause before accusing. Pause whenever you are about to react harshly and you will avoid doing and saying things you will later regret. ~~~~ Lori Deschene
Suicide is unfortunately common in my community, and I have lost many friends and acquaintances. I have found comfort in thinking of life as a flame. And some flames burn brighter, stronger, and faster than others. It sounds as if this person might have been one of the bright flames.
I wish you peace and comfort in your memories of this special individual.
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Skorpi
If you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are anxious, you are living in the future. If you are at peace, you are living in the present. - Lao Tzu
Dave this is indeed a deadly disease that we are living with. It is fatal not only for the person who drinks put also for the family members. I am so sorry to read of the suicide of your fellow alanon member.
HP is a loving HP and although he did not "save" my son from loosing his life to this disease, I still have faith that I will be given the courage, serenity and wisdom to handle life on life's terms. I had to change my expectations of HP as well as my expectations of life itself.
Prayers for you and all the members of the group as well as the person's family
Suicide....A permanent solution to a temporary problem. I loved that statement the minute I heard it as I was then a candidate for suicide taking a look at it for the 3rd time around and then deciding to stay in Al-Anon. I very soon discovered that there is a successful and unsuccessful suicide available to me and others and I went on to teach that idea for years in and out of the program. Has it changed the outcome or lowered the number of unsuccessful suicides that have taken place? I know of people who have thanked me for it who were working on an unsuccessful suicide and who became successful suicides. Here is what I learned by staying in the program and following the suggestions...all of them like I do now years later. I came in suicidal and after following the suggestions learned that I had done exactly how I thought before reaching the doors of Al-Anon. I ended my life....as I was living it then and changed how I was living it until I didn't want to loose it at all. A failed or unsuccessful suicide is ending your life. A successful suicide is ending how you live your life. My sickness was in the how I was living it including hanging on to all of the sick stuff in my life as if there was no way around it. In says in the closing statement of our face to face meetings. "...If you keep and open mind, you will find help". That true statement was the first kept promise of the program offered to me thru my HP which led to my own successful suicide.
Sad that your friend missed what I did not...Alcoholism is a fatal disease period. ((((Dave)))) Please feel free to pass on what I have learned. In love and support.
