Like many others who entered the rooms before me, I too arrived broken, in shambles so to speak. Like so many others, on the outside I was put together. I held a good job that helped me pay my bills and raise my son. I had a supportive family that was there for me – to a degree. And yet, I was completely broken. I was barely keeping myself together. My partner at the time was in the throes of his disease and I needed to find a better way. I don’t recall the incident that prompted me to look up the nearest Al-Anon meeting but that choice, that night would change my life, forever.
I had heard about Al-Anon from my mom’s carpool partner, George. He and my mom worked at the same Junior College I attended, and we carpooled together twice a week. He had talked many times about the meetings he attended.
“You know, to deal with some of the tough stuff kids go through in Alcoholic homes,” George said. I recalled one such carpool convo we had. I remembered my mom’s reaction. She had said, “You don’t want to become one of those women. You know, the kind that just keep going back to an awful situation, instead of seeking help.”
It was a Friday night. I just arrived home from work (a solid 10 years after our carpool convos) and remembered George and his gentle, subtle suggestion to give Al-Anon a try. I grabbed my computer and found the closest meeting, jotted down the address and room number, and headed out to my first meeting with my heart racing, mind racing, and palms sweating. I didn’t know what I was doing but anything was better than the hell I had trapped myself in. I got to the classroom – of course late – “Great now everyone will turn and look when I open the door, maybe I should turn around and not go in,” I told myself. Nope. I told myself, I couldn’t give up, I was already in the parking lot and might as well give it a shot. Honestly, I didn’t have anything to lose at that point.
I remember the others in the meeting sharing freely and vulnerably. Their willingness to speak gave me hope that I could speak too. It wasn’t until the closing of the meeting that I decided I would come back. In that reading I received some amazing reminders that helped me outside the rooms. Like, “Take what you like and leave the rest.” and “The things you heard were spoken in confidence and should be treated as confidential.” For me, the newcomer at that time, the closing offered me the assurance I needed to come back.
However, it was this line that has stuck with me always, “Though you may not like all of us, you’ll love us in a very special way – the same way we already love you.” It had never occurred to me that someone I didn’t know could love me. I didn’t believe then that I was loveable or worthy of love. I was overwhelmed that day and upon hearing that one line burst into tears. I had found my safe place.
I still cry sometimes when I read the closing at my home group. I still believe that, “There is no situation too difficult to be bettered and no unhappiness too great to be lessened.” I will forever be grateful for our dear friend George, for his love and compassion all those years ago, to my mom, whose fears for me helped me see a new way out for myself and to my partner, who brought me to these rooms; I am eternally grateful. This broken, shattered, desperate woman is now loving herself in all the ways I never knew possible, “One Day at a Time.”
Love In Service, Veronica R. (May 2022)
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