Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:18:25 — 44.1MB)  Spencer, Ruth, and Wendy talk about Tradition 3, which states “The relatives of alcoholics, when gathered together for mutual aid, may call themselves an Al-Anon Family Group, provided that, as a group, they have no other affiliation. The only requirement for membership is that there be a problem of alcoholism in a relative or friend.”
Ruth contributed her reading of Tradition 3 in German: “Wenn sich Angehörige von Alkoholikern zu gegenseitiger Hilfe versammeln, können sie sich Al-Anon Familiengruppe nennen, vorausgesetzt, dass sie – als Gruppe – keine andere Bindung haben. Die einzige Voraussetzung für die Zugehörigkeit ist, dass bei einem Angehörigen oder Freund ein Alkoholproblem besteht.” (From http://www.al-anon.de/grund/programm/12traditionen.htm) Ruth and Spencer talked by Skype, and we then added her contributions into the conversation with Wendy. We used these questions to guide our discussions: How do you interpret the word “relatives” in this tradition?
What about “alcoholic” and “alcoholism”?
Does your loved one have to admit they are alcoholic before you qualify for Al-Anon?
What if the alcoholic is no longer present in your life?
Do you think this tradition is intended to be inclusive or exclusive? Or maybe some of both?
How do you feel about including members whose loved ones are addicts to another drug or behavior?
Can alcoholics and addicts qualify?
How do we welcome them and keep the focus on Al-Anon at the same time?
What does this tradition suggest about how our groups function?
Welcoming new members?
Keeping focus on Al-Anon?
Who gets to decide whether someone is qualified to attend Al-Anon?
Can we read this tradition to say “we don’t judge motives”?
How can I use this tradition in my personal life?
How can I use it at work?
How can I use it in relationships? Our topic for next week is Hope. A cancer surgeon recommended that his patient’s family cultivate a hopeful attitude rather than an optimistic attitude. How is hope different from optimism? Can we have hope in “hopeless” situations? Please call us at 734-707-8795 or email feedback@therecoveryshow.com with your questions or experience, strength and hope. Or just leave a comment right here.
Continue reading Tradition 3 – Episode 63 Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:15:11 — 42.9MB) We say “changed attitudes can aid recovery”. But how do we change our attitudes? How does it help? Spencer and Rachel talk about changed attitudes. at·ti·tude a settled way of thinking or feeling about someone or something, typically one that is reflected in a person’s behavior. - the orientation of an aircraft or spacecraft, relative to the direction of travel.
We used these questions to guide our discussion: - What is “attitude” anyway?
- Do I generally have a negative attitude or a positive attitude?
- Can you make deliberate changes in attitude?
- One definition: “Angle of approach”
- If you use this definition, how does this change your answer?
- Can you change your attitude by looking at your situation / events / other people from a different point of view?
- Have you changed your attitudes since coming to the program?
- How does a change in attitude help me to accept powerlessness?
- To help me see what I *can* change?
- To stop “taking it personally”?
- What tools have helped you change attitude?
- Steps?
- Slogans?
- Other people’s experience, strength and hope?
- From meetings
- Literature
- “open” talks
- Higher power, prayer, meditation
- How have changes in attitude helped you
- In relationships?
- At work?
- Dealing with the addict/alcoholic(s) in your live?
- Living?
Our topic for next week is Tradition 3, which states “The relatives of alcoholics, when gathered together for mutual aid, may call themselves an Al-Anon Family Group, provided that, as a group, they have no other affiliation. The only requirement for membership is that there be a problem of alcoholism in a relative or friend.” Please call us at 734-707-8795 or email feedback@therecoveryshow.com with your questions or experience, strength and hope. Or just leave a comment right here.
Continue reading Changed Attitudes – Episode 62 Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:06:30 — 36.6MB)  How do I know my Higher Power’s will, which I am told to pray for in Step 11? Is Intuition the same thing?
Spencer does this one solo, with written participation by Ruth and Adrienne. He starts from this outline: - What is intuition?
- in·tu·i·tion
- 1. the ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning.
- synonyms: instinct, intuitiveness
- 2. a thing that one knows or considers likely from instinctive feeling rather than conscious reasoning.
- How do I know the will of my higher power?
- Step 11: “conscious contact” through prayer and meditation
- Make time to listen to HP
- Go to meetings
- Calm. Gut feeling.
- Daily surrender (Step 3 / 7 prayers)
- Can intuition be the voice of my higher power?
- “Conscious contact” vs “instinctive / without conscious reasoning”
- “still small voice”
- What are warning signs that it is not my HP’s will?
- Trying to control
- Dropping/ignoring program actions (meetings, reading, P&M)
- unmanageability, stress
- scrambling, frenetic, frantic
Our topic for next week is changed attitudes. Can we change our attitudes? How? Is it something we can do consciously or does it “just happen” as we work the program? Please call us at 734-707-8795 or email feedback@therecoveryshow.com with your questions or experience, strength and hope. Or just leave a comment right here. Continue reading Intuition or God’s Will? – Episode 61 
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:26:08 — 47.5MB) Spencer and Adrienne discuss Tradition 2, which says “For our group purpose, there is but one authority – a loving god as He may express Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants – they do not govern.” Which, when you think about it, is a pretty radical statement. Have you been in any other groups that functioned without “leaders”? What does it mean that our leaders are “trusted servants?” We start with a reading from the blog al-anon journal about Tradition 2. Our discussion was shaped by these thoughts and questions: - From Courage to Change Page 215:
- We strive to conduct our meetings as a fellowship of equals and to practice rotation of leadership. No single member has the right to take charge.
- When I insist on having my way, I am tampering with the spiritual nature of AlAnon as a whole
- Any attempt to manage or direct is likely to have disastrous consequences for Group Harmony
- Why do we have this tradition?
- How can it work? Can it really work to have no one person deciding how things will be?
- What is a “group conscience?” How is it determined?
- Is this sort of like Steps 2 & 3 for the group?
- How can you use this tradition in your personal life?
- In relationships
- At work
- With friends
- How does Tradition 2 support Tradition 1 (welfare of the group comes first)?
- Does this tradition remind me to not “take charge”?
- What is a “trusted servant?” How do you lead without governing?
Our topic for next week is the question “is it Intuition or the Will of my Higher Power?” How do we hear our Higher Power’s will, which we are told to ask for in Step 11? Is our intuition the same thing? What do you think? Please call us at 734-707-8795 or email feedback@therecoveryshow.com with your questions or experience, strength and hope. Or just leave a comment right here.
Continue reading Tradition 2 – Episode 60 Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:25:36 — 47.6MB)  Has your loved one relapsed? Did you expect it? How did you react? Today, Spencer and Jessyca talk about Relapse.
We structured our discussion around these points and questions: - The disease of alcoholism and addiction is chronic, progressive, and eventually fatal.
- Relapse does not have to be part of the disease, but it is frequently part of the process.
- As friends and family members, many of us have experienced the relapse of a loved one from a period of sobriety, sometimes short, sometimes long and full of recovery.
- How did and how do we respond and react when a loved one relapses?
- What is our understanding of relapse? It is often a process in which picking up the drink or drug is the last stage.
- How can we support ourselves and our loved ones in relapse?
- And, sometimes, we relapse back to our old behavior. What is an “Al-Anon relapse”?
- Have you had one? What was it like, and how did you get out of it?
Our topic for next week is Tradition 2, which states “For our group purpose, there is but one authority – a loving god as He may express Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants – they do not govern.” Which, when you think about it, is a pretty radical statement. Have you been in any other groups that functioned without “leaders”? What does it mean that our leaders are “trusted servants?”. Please call us at 734-707-8795 or email feedback@therecoveryshow.com with your questions or experience, strength and hope. Or just leave a comment right here.
Continue reading Relapse – Episode 59 
This ain’t no place for the weary kind
This ain’t no place to lose your mind
This ain’t no place to get left behind
Pick up your crazy heart and give it one more try Ryan Bingham – The Weary Kind
Choice matters. I chose to come to the meeting tonight. My addict chooses to use. Choice matters. Choice either moves us forward, backward, and sometimes by not choosing…we tacitly choose to remain where we are. Make no mistake choice matters. The irrevocable truth is that we are always keenly remember when we make that first and usually life altering choice….that first al anon meeting….that first Martini; that first cigarette, that first kiss, that first love. Choice matters to everyone. The only thing we don’t choose is the addicts in our life. But we choose how to deal with them by first dealing with ourselves. Al anon is inherently good on how it deals with the bad. The haunting Melody and Lyric of this work of art..this song called Crazy Heart has become my anthem is the well worn armour shielding me from the baptism of fire we inappropriately name recovery.A state that has a beginning but no end. Choice …a terrible beauty… matters. In the art of Crazy Heart …the steel guitars cry endlessly into the black cold night. The twang of the icy steel strings reluctantly yet uncontrollably drowns us once again deeper and deeper into the ocean abyss finally arriving at the bottom …. Home again….the bottom; the bone yard .piled high with all the broken promises and unfulfilled dreams of wasted memory. Some of us have already given up ….some in the process of given up….some of us want to give up. Yet we continue to come. We come week after week, month after month, and year after year. We come and we come and we come. We come bent, broken on bended knee …pleading, begging for some or something to drags out back into the light. The broken spirit,hammered again and again over the anvils of time , is as pure in form and nature as the cold steel of the fearless samurai’s blade. Behold the true disciple; with infinite heart and courage for all. No matter what creed, no matter the different tale of love and loss….. yet always mystically the same clear unwavering yet always compassionate voice. No advice is given but instead offered Leave the remnants of the moral carcass of the pain and disillusionment in histories absente wake. Words, rhyme,courage,and reason are all generously enmeshed in the vibrant jungles of our mind . The choice is ours. Choice in the beginning, choice in the end but choice in the present gets its due and proper. The hardest and most difficult thing to see…. the only thing that comes to account is the here and now.. The lonely poets tears fill the cracks of our broken hearts. The random pieces of our soul begin the long painful crawl towards the completion of this puzzle branded choice. This ain’t no place for the weary kind
This ain’t no place to lose your mind
This ain’t no place to get left behind
Pick up your crazy heart and give it one more try Gratitude. A meditation for February 1, 2014. Continue reading Choice – a guest meditation from Brian Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:20:47 — 36.6MB) Michele wrote to us last week suggesting that we talk about relapse. She also offered to share her experience with us. I called her to interview her, and realized that her story was powerful and compelling. So, I changed the plan and this episode is our interview with Michele, talking about her 8 year journey as her son sank into addiction, about her journey into recovery, and about how that helped her to deal with his repeated relapses. When I wrote her to request an interview, her response included this: “ Ironically, my son did relapse–just this past Saturday night, the day after I sent you my e-mail…” Listen and hear how she recognized a real change in her reaction and her response. Our topic for next week is relapse. Please call us at 734-707-8795 or email feedback@therecoveryshow.com with your questions or experience, strength and hope. Or just leave a comment right here.
Continue reading Interview with Michele – Relapse preview – Episode 58  As we prepare for our episode about relapse, I am writing to ask you to share your experience, strength, and hope. The disease of alcoholism and addiction is chronic, progressive, and eventually fatal. Relapse does not have to be part of the disease, but it is frequently part of the process. As friends and family members, many of us have experienced the relapse of a loved one from a period of sobriety, sometimes short, sometimes long and full of recovery. How did and how do we respond and react when a loved one relapses? What is our understanding of relapse? It is often a process in which picking up the drink or drug is the last stage. How can we support ourselves and our loved ones in relapse? And, sometimes, we relapse back to our old behavior. What is an “Al-Anon relapse”? Have you had one? What was it like, and how did you get out of it?
Please call 734-707-8795, use the voicemail button to the right, or email feedback@therecoveryshow.com with your experience, thoughts, and questions. Thank you. Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:16:26 — 43.4MB) Have you ever wondered, “Why do I need to go to meetings? Can’t I just read the literature?” Today, Spencer and Wendy talk about Face to Face meetings and why they are important. Our discussion was guided by these questions: What resources have you used / do you use in your program? - Meetings
- Reading Al-Anon literature
- Daily reader
- Sponsor
- Phone list
- Individual meetings with program members
- Small group (“AWOL”)
- Email
- Online meetings
- Podcasts
- Blogs
- Social media
- Journaling
- etc.
How have these helped you? How is each different from the others?
Could you do your program without going to meetings?
What do you get from meetings that you don’t get from other resources?
How does going to a meeting help others? How does it help to build a community of recovery?
Has there been a time when you were unable to or just didn’t go to meetings? What did you do then? Our topic for next week is Relapse. A listener wrote, suggesting this topic, “I think relapse would be a good topic. So many of us, parents especially, naively believe that our loved ones will emerge from rehab as if from a car wash–scrubbed clean and ready to go. As we’ve all learned through hard experience, it’s not that easy, since addiction, alcoholism and codependency are spiritual illnesses that only long-term spiritual recovery work can address.” Have you experienced relapse of your loved one? Did you see it coming? Or were you “on the pink cloud”? How did you react or respond to the relapse? Please call us at 734-707-8795 , use the voice mail button to the right, or email feedback@therecoveryshow.com with your questions or experience, strength and hope. Or just leave a comment right here.
Continue reading Face to face meetings, why are they important? – Episode 57 Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:38:33 — 53.9MB)  Do you have trouble communicating your needs and feelings to your loved ones? Do your attempts to ask for what you want always degenerate into an argument? How have you learned to communicate better in this program? Today, Spencer, Maria and guest host Meishia talk about Communication.
We started with this list of questions. How did you communicate in your relationships before you came to the program?
What special challenges to communication have you faced/seen in alcoholic relationships?
Which of these communication skills did you have then / do you have now? Listening attentively and openly. Stating your needs clearly. Using “I” statements.
Which of these communication problems did you have then / have you reduced or eliminated? Accusatory or judgemental statements. Expecting others to “read your mind”. Emotional reaction. Escalation to argument or fight
What are “I” statements? Why would you want to use them? How can they help to enhance communication and avoid emotional escalation?
Are you aware of the non-verbal signals you send? A well-written contribution from Adrienne sparked our conversation, and we just rolled on from there. Our topic for next week is face to face meetings – why are they important? Please call us at 734-707-8795 or email feedback@therecoveryshow.com with your questions or experience, strength and hope. Or just leave a comment right here.
Continue reading Communication – Episode 56 | |
