On Helping Others...

A Gift To All of You Who Commented on My Top Ten Gratitude List:

See the Photo Below :-)

And On Helping Others...

First and foremost, this is a selfish program. We help others to help ourselves. It is not a selfless program where we ignore our own needs. Many of us in Al-Anon come into the program having tried the route of giving, giving, and more giving with disastrous results. We gave too much to the wrong people for the wrong reasons.

True, one of those reasons was to try and make our world more manageable, and so it was to help ourselves, but it was going about it all wrong. We were trying to fix others before fixing ourselves. And because no one has the power to change another, we never got around to changing ourselves. I go one step further, that no one has the power to change oneself, that only one’s HP can do that when asked.

So why am I writing this today? Because I was able to help a dear program friend this morning, someone who had helped me through a difficult time. We don’t try to give advice in Al-Anon, but I told her what she had told me – get yourself to a meeting or two and call your sponsor as well as other trusted program friends. Get your focus back on your HP and away from other people. Ask your HP for help, to take this obsessive behavior away.

What’s interesting is that the words I spoke were the words I needed to hear, that I needed to get my focus off of another person who had always been a negative force in my life and get it back on my HP and his/her will for my life Just for Today. I had all too quickly gone backwards to that Pity City, Population One, where I have spent way too many days and nights.

Now I need to reside along the Broad Highway of Recovery where I can share with others and they with me, and so get out of myself and isolation but give myself time alone and with my HP. I never need help another unless I am asked. I never again have to do for another what he/she can do for him/herself. And best of all, I can ask for help when I need it.

I am oh so grateful for this program of equals, our equality being based on our common struggles and imperfections, as well as our experience, strength, and hope. Amen and Amen.