Daily readings from Al-Anon's Magazine The Forum • Recovery Reflections • Quote/Sayings

Wednesday 4/14/21

Sometimes the best things come to you when you let go of control and expectations of how things should be. When you surrender to divine plan, divine timing and open your heart for miracles that can be found in simplicity.

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Attitudes and Limitations
"My greatest limitations," a member said, "are in my mind. Until I came to this group, I wasn't even aware that many of the negative circumstances in my life were the direct result of my distorted attitudes.

"I brought myself a lot of unnecessary misery by thinking it was my responsibility to manage and direct other people's lives. I believed it was solely up to me to make everyone else happy and secure. So I continually placed everyone else's needs first until I didn't know who I was or what I needed for my own happiness and comfort. It's exhausting and insane to try to second-guess everyone. Not only that, it doesn't give me or anyone else credit for being able to think, feel, or act for himself."

Today I will not manage or direct other people's lives, nor will I expect any other human being to fill my inner emptiness. I have the dignity, resources, and responsibility to fulfill my own life just as others have theirs. I will find my own sources of comfort, joy, and peace no matter what others do with their lives and free choices.

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Al-Anon Saved My Life

I knew at that moment that neither he nor any man would ever lay a harmful hand on me again. I had only been in Al-Anon for three months and already my sense of self-worth had grown so much. The unconditional love I received from members in my meetings—the acceptance and the warm smiling faces—all fostered feelings of higher self-esteem. Even in their infant stage, these feelings were enough to give me the strength to leave him. My Sponsor explained that the alcoholic had grown up witnessing his father beat his mother and repeated that behavior with me.

I was in Al-Anon only three months when I made the self-loving decision to leave him. I don’t know whether or not he got sober. What I do know is that 30 years since the last time I was struck, no one has ever hit me again. I still attend Al-Anon and freely give what the program so freely gave to me. I believe to this day that Al-Anon saved my life.

By Carolyn C., Florida  August 2017

Reprinted with permission of The Forum
Al-Anon Family Groups Incorporated, Virginia Beach, VA

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