Ask nothing of another person... - Al-Anon Family Group

kent_s · Veteran Member

Ask nothing of another person...

isabela40 · Senior Member

Hi Kent,

What an interesting philosophical point to discuss!

I always enjoy reading your very thoughtful posts.

It is refreshing to stop the daily grind of daily living and the numbness you develop while living with an active alcoholic to stop and really think about how you feel about things, philosophically, not just the price of tea in China...

What a profound thought you shared from that man in your dear wife's AA meeting.

Interesting...as I have heard this before...from my active alcoholic husband. Except it has not made his life better, but worse.

My husband says and lives by the same motto, don't ask other people for help, just God.

While I am the total opposite, I freely help friends and family and gladly accept help from them when I need it and ask for it. And they freely ask me.

My husband has no friends, truly, not a single person he can call a friend who he talks to or spends time with. When he needs help with something, he asks God for help, then he either learns to do it himself, or does not do it. He has missed out on a lot in life, and really messed up a few things trying to do everything on his own.

My thoughts are that God made us to rely on, depend on, and help each other, while enjoying life together. He did not intend for us to live as though we were all on deserted islands.

I have found that sharing work and projects together, and asking for help, is a good way to build friendships, as long as it is balanced and you help each other. No one likes a needy or selfish person, you must give as much as you ask for, if not more. You also have to take time to enjoy life with your friends...Research has shown that the more interpersonal relationships you enjoy the healthier and happier you often are.

Women have longed learned to team up and help each other in this hard "man's world" we live in. I have found that life in general is easier for men. They don't need "help" as much as some women do.Women are very good at forming supportive networks for themselves and helping each other achieve quite a lot that they could not acheive on their own. Men have historically done pretty well for themselves being self sufficient and loners for the most part.

I think this is one of those men and women are from different planets things, LOL.

Especially if you are disabled and a man. I had a good friend in high school who was deaf. He could read lips and could understand me, but I could not understand sign language so he used to write me long letters about how he felt about things. He said that as a deaf man he found it difficult to communicate so was pretty much a loner and had learned to pretty much rely only on himself and he felt good that he had learned to not need anyone. I guess that is a good thing...but he seemed at the same time very lonely. He also shared that he had at times asked for help and been dissapointed and hurt to not get it. So that was something else he felt good about, learning to be a loner and liking it, meant no more dissapointment.

My husband feels the same way, only his reasons are more selfish. Don't ask anyone for help, and they won't ask you for help...(and you won't have to interrupt your drinking sessions).

Maybe I don't understand since I am a woman and this is a 'man thing", but as I said, my husband truly lives by this motto and I have not seen him be any happier for it...

And, yes, he considers himself a very religious and spiritual person with a strong faith and always asks God for help and says he has learned to rely only on him.

So, I guess it works for SOME people, like that man you know...but at the same time...I wonder how much he can really adhere to it by attending AA? The very premise of is that what you can't do on your own you can accomplish with help...from your HP AND other alcoholics who are maintaining their sobriety.

I hope that if he ever DOES need help with anything that he remembers that God is always there for us if we serve him and do his will, but also that he has given us friends and family to make the burdens in life a little easier to bear. We are not mind readers...sometimes we have to ask each other for help.

Isabela

Dolphin123 · ~*Service Worker*~

Kent,

Hmmmmm. I find humor in what you posted. I will expalin------

Over the past few weeks I have been knocked down so far that I have really had no other choice but to rely on HP. I have reached out to others for prayers, but all I have been saying is that all will be well and HP will take care of it.

And then I read your post, it is like HP is saying, "See, just rely on me".

I do rely on him, and he has given me so much, but I also seek support from my "A" and both my family of origin and family of choice. All I ask of my family is just to love me and listen, becuase HP can fix it.

Much Love,

drucilla06 · Senior Member

(((kent)))

Challenging as always,your posts!!

I must go with Isabella on this although I am not sure it is just a man/woman thing.My dear mom who is 90 years old and still determined to be independent does not believe in asking for help either.She is an alanon who never found alanon.Always fiercly independent.However now that her body is starting to fail her,she must depend on other people and it is killing her.

I have always had this theory,no basis for it,just a gut feeling,that the one thing you are determined to hang onto in your life is the very thing you will be asked to let go of before you leave this world.I have seen other examples of this,but my mother is the one that sticks in my mind now.She cannot go out alone,walks with a walker,does not drive.I get her groceries,take her to doctors,and help in every way I can.She feels so badly about putting me out or asking me to do anything for her.I love her and I want to do things for her but she deprives me of being able to show her my love in that way.I never complain,always tell her it's no trouble at all.

In fact she goes so far out of her way NOT to ask for help that she actually hurts herself! She tries so hard to make it easy on her kids,she ends up making it harder on everyone,especially herself.Unfortunately,I inherited this trait from her and I want to be rid of it.I would like to be more outgoing and able to ask for help when I truly need it without feeling like a horrible person for asking.

Back to the deaf man at the AA meeting,I think what he said may have been misconstrued.I think he may have meant that because he is handicapped,therefore possibly more needy than people who are not,he decided to get strong and learn not to depend on others.I see that as a good character trait as long as it does not go to the extreme my mom went to.The reason he said this decision not to ask for help saved his life is because had he become too needy and dependent he probebly would have ended up drinking again.

So I think there is a balance here.And by the way.Though my mom cannot accept help easily,she gives help freely and without expecting anything in return.Would gladly do without to help someone else.I wonder if the deaf man was a giver?

Thanks for the topic. d

-- Edited by drucilla06 at 21:34, 2006-05-22

kent_s · Veteran Member

I was kind of hoping there might be some more posts before I replied. But the ones here are good for me! The different points of view are just what I had hoped for.

Isabella, thank you again for another thoughtful and personal post.

My husband has no friends, truly, not a single person he can call a friend who he talks to or spends time with. When he needs help with something, he asks God for help, then he either learns to do it himself, or does not do it. He has missed out on a lot in life, and really messed up a few things trying to do everything on his own.

I hadn't considered, what if you use those words but have no faith in them -- use them as an excuse to reinforce the behavior that created your biggest needs in the first place?

But reading the above quote out of context, it isn't necessarily a criticism. If the alternative to having "missed out on a lot in life, and really messed up a few things" were missing everything else in life, messing everything up, and dying young of brain damage and alcohol poisoning, because he wouldn't ask for help from his HP, then this seems the better outcome to me. Unfortunate but better. I don't pretend to know what exactly he did mess up, even though I'm sure harm to others came of it, but I think a different perspective on the same words does give them a different significance. Given the personal example you shared, though, that's probably a stretch to consider.

My thoughts are that God made us to rely on, depend on, and help each other, while enjoying life together. He did not intend for us to live as though we were all on deserted islands.

My thoughts: I agree with your meaning. I think most of my problems come from the natural habit of covering my soft spot(s), holding myself back, separating myself, making my heart more remote, putting myself first. My opinion is that doing that is the basis for all the suffering caused in the world. (I would say, that is the devil's work.) I think that most societies shame men who show any dark emotion other than anger and that is probably the biggest cause of suffering in the world (men funneling all these other emotions into bulging anger, lotta violence, lotta injustice).

The 12 Steps, I think, are about surrendering our isolation, our arrogance, and perhaps our over-extended egos.

Your metaphor recalls for me a beautiful lyric from an old '70s song,

Beneath the wind turned wave
Infinite peace
Islands join hands
'Neathe heaven's sea.

(full lyric)

I believe we are unique and completely interdependent with all things and changes that occur. I believe what we do share is what I call the spiritual aspect of each moment, that is what we have in common with all living things (although I see the spiritual in a beautiful moutain range and an ocean sunset, I don't know if I share it with them).

...and this is a 'man thing'...

I know what you mean when you say that. You could even relate this to hunters and gathers of prehistoric days, independent hunters, etc. I have known women who are fiercely independent, often to their detriment, just like your husband, just like my wife. But none that I have known have asked for help from HP (including my AW). I'm not convinced it is a gender thing, but it is interesting to examine what and who I know and reconsider that case.

And Dolphin, if you can see the humor in...

Over the past few weeks I have been knocked down so far that I have really had no other choice but to rely on HP.

...then you truely have been touched by your HP's helping hand. Much love to you, too.

Drucilla, thank you for your balance.

I have always had this theory,no basis for it,just a gut feeling,that the one thing you are determined to hang onto in your life is the very thing you will be asked to let go of before you leave this world.

Wow. I had never exactly thought about that, but it seems so intuitively right. I think there may be a lot of wisdom in there.

Something that I recall, that now I see it's not in my original post, is that the AA guy's share was about how he had always been a taker. Always getting off the hook, always getting drunk. When he tried to get sober, he would use people's help, as well as the lack of it, against himself and his goal. He came to this conclusion, only ask your HP, to break himself of his excuses. Relying on only his relationship with and faith in his HP allowed him to be with others and to take and give help. He did ask for help, he received help, but he stopped asking for hand-outs and free rides by becoming brutally honest about his fears and weaknesses.

I consider his challenge a worthwhile exercise in faith. Very difficult for me, but attempting it gives me a stronger experience of faith. I find it works when I practice generosity, then my HP helps me. I cannot see us as independent of each other, we discover ourselves through our life with each other. Yet there are parts of us that only our HP can hear, we cannot find that voice with others.

Thank you for your thoughts, for letting me so deeply into your lives.

-K

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