Intro

[00:00:01] Spencer: What does it mean that Al-Anon groups are autonomous? What are limits on this autonomy? How do you see this acting in your own life?

[00:00:10] Welcome to episode four hundred fifty-eight of The Recovery Show. This episode is brought to you by Charlotte and Amy. They used the donation button on our website. Thank you, Charlotte and Amy, for your generous contributions. This episode is for you.

[00:00:24] We are friends and family members of alcoholics and addicts who have found a path to serenity and happiness. We who live or have lived with the seemingly hopeless problem of addiction understand as perhaps few others can. So much depends on our own attitudes, and we believe that changed attitudes can aid recovery.

[00:00:41] Marylou: Before we begin, we would like to state that in this show, we represent ourselves rather than any 12-step program. During the show, we will share our own experiences. The opinions expressed here are strictly those of the person who gave them. Take what you like and leave the rest. We hope that you find something in our sharing that speaks to your life

[00:01:00] Spencer: My name is Spencer. I am your host today. Joining me today is Mary Lou. Welcome back to the Recovery Show, Mary Lou. Our last time together we talked about step nine in episode 434, so welcome back.

[00:01:12] Marylou: Thank you very much. Glad to be here.

[00:01:15] Spencer: We'll be reading from the book How Al-Anon Works. Chapter 16 is the 12 Traditions, and there's a section on Tradition Four. And then Mary Lou, I think you brought some other readings to supplement that because you felt this reading is a little shallow.

[00:01:31] Marylou: It focuses primarily on one aspect of group autonomy.

[00:01:34] Spencer: Okay. We will dig in here.

Tradition 4

[00:01:37] Spencer: Start by reading Tradition Four. Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting another group or Al-Anon or AA as a whole. Pretty simple statement, but I think there's a lot to it.Would you like to read the first paragraph?

[00:01:53] Marylou: As newcomers, we are often encouraged to attend several different meetings because each meeting has its own atmosphere and its own personality. Meetings differ because each group is free to make many decisions for itself. Tradition Four grants freedom of choice to each individual meeting over when and where to meet and how to conduct its meetings.

[00:02:15] Spencer: I am grateful for this variability, the fact that different meetings have their own atmosphere, their own personality. Because I have attended meetings that just didn't work for me, and I have attended meetings that I really felt I was getting something from, and those are the ones that I choose to go to. If every single meeting had to run the same way, I might or might not have liked that, you know? Do you have any thoughts on this paragraph?

[00:02:43] Marylou: One of the things I actually did was I looked up the word autonomy, 'cause I've heard it said that, autonomy is a basically like $10 word for a much simpler concept. and that is, the idea that there's no one forcing our own will on anybody else. And unfortunately for a lot of us Al-Anons, after a whole lifetime of having done nothing but that, we're now being called on to do something completely different, which is to respect other people's opinions, who we may not even have agreed with, or we can't even figure out how to agree with.

[00:03:15] For one year, I did the lead on the tradition in the group that I go to on Tuesday nights, and I– it forced me to understand what the purpose of the traditions were. When I first came to Al-Anon, if I got there and it was a tradition meeting, I might have headed for the hills. Thought, “Oh, my God, this is so boring. I can't even really relate to this.” And so I thought it would be a good challenge in consultation with my sponsor to, to try to understand what the point of the traditions is.

[00:03:44] a- and especially how they apply to our actual day-to-day lives. Because there's, like this part of it, the whole idea, technically, we're allowed to run our meetings the way that we want to.

[00:03:55] Spencer: I'd like to read the second paragraph because it opens up some details from the first one. These two go together about meeting autonomy, and the way that meetings may be different from each other.

[00:04:06] Paragraph two says, One group may open the meeting by saying the serenity prayer, reading the 12 steps, and announcing the topic. Another group begins with introductions, reads various pieces of Al-Anon literature aloud, makes Al-Anon-related announcements, and proceeds with open sharing on any topic relating to alcoholism or its effects. A meeting may be held in the early morning in a large auditorium or at night in a tiny church basement. Because each group is allowed such autonomy, the members themselves are free to create an atmosphere and a meeting agenda that will best suit the needs of the group.

[00:04:39] Marylou: Let me read the next paragraph, 'cause then I think the reading from the forum does address this. The only restriction on this freedom is that the well-being of Al-Anon and AA must take precedence over the interest of one group. As we saw in the first tradition, our unity is essential to our survival as a fellowship. No group should make decisions that would detract from that unity.

[00:04:58] The reading from the forum says, When I first attended Al-Anon, it was quite a cultural shock to hear in the program that there are no rules. Based on my alcoholic upbringing, I expected other members to tell me what to do and how to do it. Instead, they said, ‘Follow your heart. Take what you like and leave the rest,' and our groups are autonomous. As I became more familiar with our traditions, I realized that there is a yes but attached to the group autonomy referred to in tradition four.

[00:05:25] Abiding by the traditions has helped me follow this caveat that I not bring harm to the program that has helped me so much. Al-Anon adapted these suggested guidelines from the hard-earned experiences of the early AA groups so that we might avoid the same pitfalls that they faced and assure that Al-Anon can continue to exist.

[00:05:44] While there, quote, “are no rules in Al-Anon,” quote, there is a yes but to that statement too, and these are the actual words of Lois: “But we remain obedient to the unenforceable.” Our co-founder, Lois W., first applied the term obedience to the unenforceable to the traditions in 1966, when she included a chapter about them for the revision of our first book. She wrote, “Al-Anon holds together by means of a loving understanding among its members. Al-Anon is united by its members' willingness to be obedient to the unenforceable. Willingly, they apply the 12 traditions to the affairs of their groups. Nobody compels them. They're learning to overcome self-will, false pride, resentment, and self-pity by recognizing that principles are more important than personalities, and by accepting a program upon which they know they can depend for help.

[00:06:39] In Lois B. Remembers, Lois described love as the regenerating forceand also said, “I now realize loving is our supreme function.” I agree with her and truly believe that love is what keeps our program alive. I feel compelled by my love of the program to follow the traditions to the best of my abilities.

[00:06:57] Without that love Al-Anon has provided me, there's no telling where or whether I would be.

[00:07:03] Spencer: Yeah, that's good. And you will send me a link so I can put that in the show notes on the website, of course, at therecovery.show/458. The phrase obedience to the unenforceable comes up in a number of places as we're looking at the traditions because,that word tradition is not rule, it's not law, right? These are ways in which we have determined that our groups, our meetings will remain healthy and will provide recovery to the most number of people, something like that.

[00:07:38] Marylou: I was reading a little bit about the history of AA this morning, and one of the, points that they made, you know, you never know how much of this is true because it's the memories of the people who were around at the time. But, there was a long discussion that Bill W. called it the General Service Organization, because he wanted it to be completely authoritarian. And the group said, we can't do that.” And so then that's where they came up with the idea that groups could be autonomous except affecting other groups. And that it was very difficult to get a bunch of alcoholics, even if they had stopped drinking, to suddenly fall into line and follow any kind of rules whatsoever, much less, these other kind of rules.

[00:08:20] So, this idea about autonomy for me is it seems like it's just focused on my own behavior. But in, in fact,it's also the idea of letting other people have their own will. As I mentioned earlier, I certainly had no experience with either, either allowing anyone else's autonomy or certainly upholding or supporting anyone else's autonomy. That was not actually how I had done those things. One of the, comments I read online was, “I learned that nothing was really good unless other people were actually considered. If I don't seek the advice and help of others in matters affecting them, then I become God in my own life, the exact nature of my own wrongs.”

[00:09:04] We don't get to be a dictator of other people, how their lives run. And we have to recognize that we need help from other people, and that we don't know all the answers of exactly how it's supposed to go. In Al-Anon, I certainly learned to rely on other people's experience, strength and hope. That's such a big part of our meetings. Our goal is not 100% allegiance or autonomy. It's the way that we can learn to work together toward a common goal. So I think that being able to recognize that I need help and that other people can help me, I think that's like a balance. It's a balancing act. And I guess that's one of the things, you know– the reading that's in the book, sometimes I feel like there's a lot of rules in Al-Anon, right? Like this whole approved literature . You can't do this, you can't do that. and then it's where's the help? If people are disagreeing about something and very strongly and maybe even vociferously, like, where's the actual help? I think the help is not necessarily in the group being autonomous. It's how do we work together as a group to overcome whatever the problem is,whatever we think the problem is that someone has brought to our attention.

[00:10:24] I understand about making sure that we only look at Al-Anon materials and Al-Anon literature. I understand that. I really don't want someone coming in and reading anything else, honestly. We don't want our groups either to become… We don't want this to be like a men's group or women's group,a Republican group, a Democrat group.

[00:10:43] I'm perfectly happy to leave all of that stuff, which happens in a lot of other things that I participate in. I'm happy to leave that outside and not have to think about those things in Al-Anon. Alcoholism doesn't respect anything else..

[00:10:59] Spencer: I want to read the next paragraph because that really, addresses or underlies some of what you just said.

[00:11:05] Thus, we refrain from discussing other 12-step groups, philosophies, or therapies in our meetings. Only Al-Anon materials are used at Al-Anon meetings. We do not impose this restriction to pass judgment on material produced by others, but because by focusing exclusively on the Al-Anon philosophy in our meetings, we avoid a great deal of confusion. The Al-Anon principles form the basis of our recovery, and anything that undermines or confuses those principles can be detrimental to the program as a whole. As individuals, we are free to pursue anything and everything outside of the meeting that contributes to our health and wellbeing. We are encouraged to learn all we can about alcoholism, but as a group, we must remain clear about why we have come together and what we hope to accomplish.

[00:11:50] One of the meetings that I've gone to for years voted in their group conscience to allow reading from the AA Big Book in the meeting. I understand this is a controversial opinion. it is not Al-Anon produced material. But at the same time, it is the material from which the Al-Anon program grew. So I can see both sides of that question. it doesn't happen very often in that meeting that somebody quotes from the Big Book. But the meeting has said it is okay to do that. Does that harm Al-Anon as a whole? I don't know.

[00:12:27] Marylou: There's a big meeting here in Chicago, it's called We Are Not Saints, and it's run by AA, but it's with Al-Anon participation When I first came to Al-Anon, I just was following the lead of other people who had been coming for a long time. And,a bunch of people said, “Oh, this is what we're doing on this day.” Kind of like, “Get in this car and go to this place.” And that's what I did. One of the speakers there, had been in Al-Anon for so long that she said that when she did the steps with her sponsor, that we didn't have any Al-Anon books. And so she– they used the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous as the guide to doing the steps in Al-Anon, and they applied the, the Al-Anon aspect to it.

[00:13:05] I agree with you. The question of doing it in a meeting I think becomes– my first sponsor was very strict. It's interesting, when you read that we can do anything we want to basically outside of the meeting. She, had a very strong opinion that, I shouldn't do a lot of outside reading. That was part of why, I didn't want her to be my sponsor eventually because I just thought, “This is not helping me.” If you tell me I can't read other things. I understand why for some people they might think it's like confusing or whatever to read outside things. But I agree with you. I think that understanding the history… I often tell newcomers there are no musts in Al-Anon, and take what you like and leave the rest because I just feel that's a super important aspect of the program. and it goes along with the idea that we don't give advice to people because we don't know what your situation is. Everybody in that room can think of a situation, child, spouse, parent, sibling, where o-one person did one thing, and the other person did another thing, and then how that worked out. I often tell people, “If you go to a meeting and people are giving you a bunch of advice, that's probably not the best meeting.”

[00:14:13] Our advice in meetings is keep coming back. Think about getting a sponsor. Read the literature. that's what we tell people, right? We don't tell people,”Here-here's the book.” You know, a lot of people come looking for that book, right? A manual of how to fix the alcoholic , and we don't have that book because we don't know what your situation is. I just tell people like, “When you're ready to do whatever it is that you think you wanna do, you'll know that.” And we don't need to have a rule about everybody leaves the person who's the alcoholic, or everybody just keeps them and keeps on tolerating. It's too crazy to try to think about that. I'm sure you've seen this, Spencer.

[00:14:52] I remember hearing a-an AA speaker, and he was talking about the differences between,the meetings where he started, where he became sober, and then, he went to Southern California.

[00:15:00] And he said in Southern California, he said they clapped and cheered for everything, and they had birthday cakes, like actual cakes in the room. And he said it was horrifying to him. Like, what are these people doing? Like, it was just such an anathema to him. And I try to recognize that inside of myself, that there are certain practices within certain meetings. There's a meeting in our district that says the Lord's Prayer at the end of the meeting. I don't particularly care for that. But that group has decided that. As far as I know, no one has, mounted a challenge to it. I only go there infrequently enough that I haven't brought it up myself. I don't think it's particularly welcome for people of other religions in some cases or no religion. But they've decided on that.

[00:15:47] Spencer: If I look at the suggested Al-Anon closing, from this book How Al-Anon Works, at the end it says in italics, “It is suggested that groups close in a manner that is agreeable to the group conscience.” Some meetings close with the Al-Anon declaration, some meetings close with the serenity prayer. I went to a meeting that just closed. Which I didn't particularly agree with, but that was the way they did it. I might decide I don't wanna go to the meeting if they're doing something that I disagree with. But hopefully I don't take it that Al-Anon as a whole is no good because of that.

[00:16:25] You wanna read paragraph five, which is the last paragraph in this reading because I think it leads into where you wanna go, with some other readings

[00:16:34] Marylou: On a personal level, Tradition Four reminds us that although we have the right to do what we believe is best for us, so do those around us. We need to be considerate of others and not infringe upon their freedom. With this understanding comes not only independence, but also mutual respect and dignity. It can be best summarized by the slogan, “Live and let live.”

[00:16:55] Spencer: I know you wanted to read some from the book Reaching for Personal Freedom, also known to some of us as the Tree Book, because that is a book that really digs into how we practice the steps, the traditions, the concepts of service in our personal life.

[00:17:12] Marylou: Yeah. In this book it says, Tradition Four presents us with the opportunity for growth and learning how to find appropriate balance between personal autonomy and responsibility to others. We may have freedom to do what we want, but when we consider how our actions could affect others, we come to understand that our autonomy has limits.

[00:17:29] All or nothing attitudes and thinking are common in alcoholic families, as if the only alternatives available are total freedom or total control. It is not unusual to see rebellion against all authority with little recognition for how much authority is reasonable. In general, alcoholic families usually have little experience with healthy boundaries and frequently struggle with control issues.

[00:17:52] Tradition Four helps us to understand the boundary between what is within our control and what isn't. Learning to find the right balance between our autonomy and someone else's is the mature alternative to the loneliness of total freedom or absolute control. It makes healthy relationships possible.

[00:18:10] Yeah, I like that. It makes healthy relationships possible.One of the things I wrote down when I was thinking about all of this is, before Al-Anon, I operated as though I was a god in my own life. I was a dictator. With others, I was often just the opposite, seeking their approval. The fourth tradition solves this dilemma. I seek to be one with God and to be one with others about matters affecting them.

[00:18:35] What are some questions we could ask of ourselves before we make a decision to use our autonomy? I think the Al-Anon pause has been one of the most helpful tools to me in my life just because I don't think there was any pause in there at all. And the whole idea that I needed to stop and think, “If I do this, what might happen?” Or, “Is anybody else gonna agree with this?” That discipline of taking a pause to think, what could possibly happen if I did this? How might this affect other people?” I certainly in the past might have used something like my own feeling of autonomy, I don't know if it's autonomy, or my feeling of fear and needing to protect myself to be used to either excuse or justify improper behavior

[00:19:20] I feel like it, it can be a struggle to find that sweet spot where everyone feels like they've been heard, people's concerns have been addressed, the unanimity of the group is protected, and a person doesn't feel like they've just been run over by a Mack truck. Trying to find that place, I think is really complicated.

[00:19:43] Spencer: There's a question in Reaching for Personal Freedom that says, “In what ways do the decisions I make affect others?” That's a really good question. I think there definitely have been many times in my life where I did not consider that question. I'm gonna make a decision because I think it's the right thing for me to do. I don't know if I was feeling like, it doesn't matter how it affects anybody else, or I didn't think it would affect anybody else, or it's my right to make that decision 'cause it's about my life. There's a little bit of arrogance there.

[00:20:15] If I can pause, again, the pause, and ask myself, “Hey, if I make this decision, what effect is this gonna have on other people?” I'm thinking about, last week my wife and I went to, a nursery to buy, bedding plants, flowers and vegetables and so on, to put out in the various pots and planters that we have on our deck and our front porch. My wife's in charge of the flowers. She's got her plan of how she wants to,put things out and I can say, “What about this? I kinda like this.” And she can say, that doesn't fit my vision,” or whatever. But we kinda trade off to each other. I think there was at least one place where I said, “Hey, how about this? This could work in this context.” And she's like, “Oh, yes it could.” I'm picking out some vegetable plants and some herbs and stuff, and I know that my wife likes sweet cherry tomatoes. I was looking at them and she said, what about this one?” And I said, “Oh, that would be a good one.” And she also wants to have sweet basil planted right alongside the tomatoes so you can pick a tomato, wrap it in a basil leaf, and just chomp on it. It's a wonderful taste of summer, right?So I knew I had to get sweet basil. but for the rest of it,I picked out some eggplants. I've had bad luck with peppers, so I didn't get any peppers this year. and some other herbs. And that was totally my decision because, I'm the one who cooks, so I'm the one who's gonna use those vegetables and herbs. But by considering how my decision's gonna affect her or how her decision's gonna affect me, we come to a cooperative,set of things that we bought.

[00:21:55] And then, she's like, “Hey, we could go out and get lunch after this.” It was a little bit of a late lunch, but it was still lunch. And my head was, “I wanna get home.” I don't remember why. for some reason I was in a hurry to get home. I don't think there was any good reason for that. She's like, ” Here's a possible restaurant.” And I said, “That's further away from home. Can we find one towards home?” So, you know, we found a place. It was nice. We had a good lunch, and we got home with plenty of time. And like I said, I don't even remember why I felt like I had to hurry home. This, idea of working independently but cooperating, is one of the things that this part of this tradition talks about.

[00:22:40] Marylou: I feel like the traditions have been very helpful in figuring out that balance.

[00:22:45] The next question in this book is, how does listening to others help me make responsible decisions? I can't tell you the number of times I've been in a meeting and thought I had a very strong opinion about something, and it had to be, it had to go that way. And then after I listened to other people, I either was able to let go of that kind of death hold on my view of how it needed to go or, just listening to how someone else thought about a situation, was so enlightening to me. So many times in Al-Anon I hear something that I've never thought before, or I don't think I ever would have thought on my own. I feel like that has been so helpful to me. Shockingly, so many times I've been able to either change my mind completely or, sometimes we come to let's do it this way for this period of time and then see. Like re- let's come back and revisit this, discussion, at some later point.

[00:23:52] For me, there's just something that's just been so satisfying and so affirming maybe that, that I can change my… I think in my family of origin, you had to be sure what your opinion was. You had to defend it to the death, and by God, you never let go of it, right? Because that, made you look weak or something. I think the opposite is true now. Being able to tolerate more and more uncertainty around something and to consider other people's, perspective. In Al-Anon, we say, “How important is it anyway?” You know?

[00:24:23] I think this whole idea that myself doesn't have to be wedded to a particular point of view, that I can be just as strong and resolute in my approach to the world by incorporating other people's opinions. And I feel like this tradition really encourages me to allow myself to grow in that direction.

[00:24:46] Spencer: There's a couple more questions here that I think echo this question about how does listening to others help me make responsible decisions? There's one that says, “How do I balance personal freedom with consideration for others when making decisions?” Okay, it's a little bit different, but it still is this idea of bringing in other people into the decision process, maybe only mentally, not necessarily asking them for advice.

[00:25:11] And then, “How can I make wiser decisions by getting the input of others rather than relying on myself alone?” Which I think echoes what you just said. There's a lot here. And again, this is in the book, Reaching for Personal Freedom, which is a great book if you wanna get a little more in-depth with the Al-Anon, steps, traditions, and concepts

[00:25:31] Marylou: The last thing I wanted to say, Spencer, about this is that I can have a very strong opinion about certain things, based on my own personal experiences, and the practice,sometimes it's embodied in going to business meetings, but it can also just be listening to someone give a lead on a particular topic. I can think, oh, I don't have any need to change my opinion about this. And yet sometimes when someone else feels very strongly about something and their opinion is, maybe even diametrically opposed to mine, I can recognize that if I don't really care that much about it, like it can be generous and humble to give that away to someone else who does care so passionately about that, and it doesn't cost me anything.

[00:26:21] I guess again, this kind of goes back to, I don't want to say alcoholism was like the iron fist because that would give it more strength in a way than it really was. It was just like disorganized chaos, right? But it can feel, I think sometimes when you're in the throes of it as though it's like something is being shoved down your throat, so to speak. All this craziness, this crazy chaotic uncertainty, that seems so,avoidable. I have to remind myself like, I'm not in that situation now, and that means I'm not in danger. Even though these decisions can sometimes provoke that feeling in me that you know, either fear or something really big is at stake, I have to remind myself, like I'm sitting in a room in a church basement where I'm safe. My life doesn't depend on this decision goingone way versus the other way. It can feel like that sometimes, but it doesn't have to.

[00:27:21] Spencer: I think also, living with active alcoholism and the chaos that it creates, provokes a desire to control anything and everything else, right? I think many of us, and that includes me, came into Al-Anon with this overgrown control muscle in response to, in opposition to the chaos that I was living in.

[00:27:49] Marylou: That kind of provokes my last question, which is, do I always bear in mind that to those outsiders who know that I'm in Al-Anon, I may be to some extent representing our entire fellowship? So if people look at me and they're like, “Wow, she's got the my way or the highway thing going,” if that's an Al-Anon thing, maybe that's not really for me. I want newcomers and people who know me to get a different feeling about Al-Anon. And so I have to keep that in mind that to some people I'm the example of what Al-Anon is, and I want that to be, for me, that openness, that, I don't know, warmth and, comfort and support, that I've received from coming to the program.

[00:28:30] I think sometimes this tradition can sound– like, you know, all of the rules and no actual help. I don't want people to feel that the point of all of this is, being the one who's in charge of all the best rules and knowing what all the rules are and can recite them, off, off the cuff to like somebody who comes in. To me, that's not really the point. The point is preserving, the essence of Al-Anon while allowing… Just as an example, I'm in a group that, we never even had a rule about, phones out or phones away, whatever. but there's a group that I go to where there's older people, and sometimes they have family members who have issues, and the consideration is if you need to take a message, please just step out of the room. It's not, “If you touch that phone, your hand's gonna fall off.”

[00:29:23] I understand some people, it's like you walk in the room, turn off the phone, everything, do not disturb. I get that. People don't wanna, think about that. and certainly some people don't want to see other people like, on their phone looking for things. But, it's complicated. People sometimes take notes on their phones. I'm never offended if someone has a notebook and is writing things down while they're listening ‘ cause they wanna remember what that person said or it really struck them, or it brought up something for them. so I don't wanna put myself in that judge, ju– I was– my whole life was in that judge, jury, and executioner role.

[00:29:55] That was what I did. That was what alcoholism did to me, right? And I don't wanna be in that place now.. I don't need to be involved in that anymore.

[00:30:03] Spencer: I just wanna come back around to the sentence that you read. Tradition four, yeah, can feel like it's the Al-Anon police in some ways, but the other aspect of it that, that you read earlier, “Tradition four presents us with an opportunity for growth in learning how to find the appropriate balance between personal autonomy and responsibility to others.”

[00:30:31] And I really, I like that, and I think that's a great way to think about what tradition four is asking of me, and asking of my group. have autonomy in the way we run our group, but we have responsibility to the program of Al-Anon as a whole, also. We can grow in expressing that autonomy within the constraints of that responsibility Let's take a little break here. We'll come back with Our Lives in Recovery, where we talk about how recovery is showing up in our daily lives and in our meetings.

Song 1

[00:31:07] Spencer: I picked some songs for this episode. The first one that I came up with, this was obvious, is the song My Way. And I haven't decided, if I want to put up the Frank Sinatra version, the Elvis version, or the Sex Pistols version on the website.

[00:31:21] Maybe I'll put up more than one of them, 'cause one of those will speak to different people in the audience, right? Different people who are listening who will appreciate one or the other. This song is very much about autonomy, not really paying much attention to the needs of other people.

[00:31:41] The refrain is, “I did it my way.” The person who's singing it is near the end of his life and not regretting that he did things his way. So maybe this is what we look like before we really grow into using tradition four in our lives.

[00:31:58] Marylou: There's an irony in that, that my father, who's the alcoholic, that was one of his favorite songs.

[00:32:04] Spencer: Sure

Our LIves in Recovery

[00:32:12] Spencer: In this section of the podcast, we talk about our lives in recovery. How have we experienced recovery recently? I was thinking about this. I recently took a long, for me, a road trip. for other people that came along, it was a plane trip. I drove to Texas. My wife flew. She's not good with, spending three days in the car. I get that.I like to take the car because then I can take my dog, so there's some autonomy but also, respect for other people's needs and decisions.The reason we were going was to visit my sister-in-law, her daughter, and a brand-new grandnephew, who was born January 1st of this year.

[00:32:57] It was a great visit, but there was a lot of I'll say compromise if you want. You know, everybody saying, “Hey, I'd like to do this, I'd like to do that.” And other people saying, I'd like to do this other thing.” and spending some time thinking for the whole group of people, what was something that would work for all of us.

[00:33:19] For example, my sister came along for the ride with me. she helped me on the ride down and company, and she said, “I've never been to Texas.” We were visiting my in-law families in College Station, Texas, which is, if you have any idea of the geography of Texas, it's about halfway between Houston and Austin. It's in that part of the state. And I said, “Well, you know, Austin's a neat place. Maybe we, we could go visit Austin and see some sights there.” But that would entail, a two-hour drive each way and more time in the car and so on. And somebody else suggested that we could go visit the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum, which is right there in College Station, and that seemed like a good sort of touristy thing to do that didn't involve lots of driving.

[00:34:10] We also went to a western wear store because some of the members wanted to pick up some western shirts and stuff. I briefly looked at the hats and decided I did not want to spend hundreds of dollars on a cowboy hat. But it, again, I wasn't really there for me, but I made something out of it.

[00:34:26] And then we went to the George Bush library after we had lunch. And I am so glad. Coming back to your thing about, if I listen to somebody else, I might actually learn something or I might actually find something that I like better than what I thought I wanted. I'm so glad we did that because that was a really… It was both educational and inspirational. This is George Bush Senior, H.W. Bush. It told the story of his life. and although I mostly did not agree with him politically, I respect his integrity, and that really came through in the exhibits there. I'm so glad that I listened and didn't push for what I thought would be fun.

[00:35:09] Again, the way things show up in my life- I'm talking about tradition four, I'm talking about autonomy, but respecting other people's needs and decisions. And that showed up in my life a couple weeks ago, where that was a really benefit to me and to the whole group of us.

[00:35:32] And I think with that, I'll pass

[00:35:34] Marylou: I'll tell you this story. So my son just– so this is like a big update from the last time or the first time that you and I talked. My son just graduated from University of Illinois. and, I've been having conversations with him about, what we should do to celebrate that.

[00:35:51] He was still kind of in it, I mean, he was really having to study, right up until the end. When I initially brought this up to him, he said, he said, “Well, I just feel numb.” I was kind of like, “Well, you know, it's not like there's a statute of limitations on celebrating your graduation, so we can do it whenever you want to.”

[00:36:07] But I just started to feel this kind of, I don't know, crazy sense of responsibility, I guess, to do something. So I gave my son a couple of suggestions, and then I just let it be in his hands. And then he picked out a really nice restaurant, and we went, and it was lovely. And I didn't have to, stage manage the whole thing.

[00:36:26] Spencer: Thank you looking forward in the podcast. Continuing with the traditions obviously. We welcome your thoughts on the upcoming traditions five, six, seven and so on.You can join our conversation, you can leave us a voicemail or send us an email with your feedback or your questions.

[00:36:47] Mary Lou, how can people send us feedback?

[00:36:50] Marylou: You can send a voice memo or email to feedback@therecovery.show. Or if you prefer, you can call and leave us a voicemail at seven three four seven zero seven eight seven nine five. You can also use the voicemail button on the website to join the conversation from your own computer.

[00:37:11] We'd love to hear from you, share your experience, strength and hope, or any questions about today's topic of Tradition Four or any of the other upcoming topics, including more traditions. If you have a topic that you'd like for us to talk about, please let us know.

[00:37:26] If you'd like advance notice for some of our topics so that you can contribute to that topic, you can sign up for our mailing list by sending an email to feedback@therecovery.show. Put “email” in the subject line to make it easier to spot.

[00:37:42] Spencer, where can our listeners find out more about The Recovery Show?

[00:37:47] Spencer: That would be at our website, which is therecovery.show. We have fairly extensive notes these days for each episode, including a transcript of the episode. In those notes we'll have, at therecovery.show/458, in this case, we'll have links to all of the books that we read from and mentioned, videos for the music that we chose, and also there you can find links to some other recovery podcasts and websites we'll take a short break before diving into our mailbag.

[00:38:21] The second song, also available on the website, is Go Your Own Way by Fleetwood Mac. And again, thinking about songs that Talk about autonomy, talk about independence. This one is, I think, a lot more about independence. looking at the lyrics in more detail, this really is more about somebody who's going their own way away from somebody else. It's a breakup song. Okay, what can I say? With these lyrics, “You can go your own way. Go your own way. You can call it another lonely day.” so I don't know, maybe not the best choice, but at least the title of the song relates to, to the autonomy expressed in tradition four.

[00:39:03] Marylou: You know, Spencer, I have a different opinion about that now. and I think I, I attribute this to Al-Anon. Where I go to church, they say, “Wherever you are in your life journey, you're welcome here.” And thinking of my son, who was my qualifier when I first came into Al-Anon, it's been very helpful to me to think of myself as being on my own life journey, and of him being on his own life journey. And this idea of going your own way, if you think about knowing someone over their lifetime, you can be walking the same path together for a while, and then you might have to go your own way to, to figure something else out. I think in the past, I would've thought of that as just like the end of the world. Like you said, like a breakup song, and then just boom, that's it. To think of it now as,that I can respect someone else being on their own life journey . I want people to respect me on my life journey.

[00:39:52] He's on his own journey. He's figuring that stuff out. And it doesn't have to all be,translated through me. I feel very grateful to Al-Anon for that idea that, our paths can be going what, what seems disparate or separate, but in fact, we're still tied together in some way.

[00:40:10] And I have confidence now that there will be like a coming back together period

[00:40:16]

Listenebr Feedback

[00:40:25]

[00:40:25] Spencer: Now it's time to hear your voices

[00:40:27] We got a voicemail from Toni.

[00:40:30]

[00:40:30] Toni: Hi, Eric. This is Toni, grateful Al-Anon member in Florida. On a recent trip, I listened to your episodes on estrangement, which I have been experiencing for at least the past twelve years from my daughter and her family. I've never been involved in their lives since that time, and it was very helpful to me to learn that unfortunately, there are many other people experiencing the same thing in Al-Anon, and that it is a phenomenon that we can all learn from.

[00:41:12] Thank you for the insights, and thank you for your courage to talk about a very difficult topic.

[00:41:19] Spencer: Thank you, Toni, for letting us know how those episodes touched you. I have forwarded your voicemail to Eric also. It really helps us to keep going when we know that we're providing some meaningful content for you.

[00:41:38] Diane writes about my guest appearance on the podcast, Fragmented to Whole, episode three forty, and I will put a link to that podcast in the show notes at therecovery.show/458.

[00:41:52] Diane says, Hi, Spencer. I just listened to When Life Gets Lifey, episode three-forty. You were the guest speaker. I listen to The Recovery Show all the time, and I mean all the time. They are all timeless, powerful lifelines for so many people. Thank you so much.

[00:42:08] Back to episode three-forty. Wow, I loved it. Thank you for sharing about your parents. It really hit home with me. I identified with so much. My mom also passed when we left the room. Her choice. She'd been in an assisted living place for five-plus years. For a full day, we were told, ‘This is it.' My sister and I were with her nonstop.

[00:42:30] Around midnight, my sister wanted to get her slippers from her car. I didn't want her to go by herself to the parking lot. We were gone less than five minutes. When we got back, the staff, who were wonderful, were waving to us to hurry. She'd taken her last breath when we left the room. My sister and I, thinking and talking about the timing, decided, when we left the room, our mom said to herself, ‘Finally, I didn't want them to see my last breath.'

[00:42:59] I can write so much more. Thank you for making such a wonderful difference in this world. I am someone who is deeply grateful. P.S. I am also grateful for COVID because of the Zoom meetings. I am not able to attend in person, and I can attend so many Zoom meetings now.

[00:43:16] Thank you, Diane, for that. You know, I always ask my higher power to move me to say something that is going to touch somebody else. This is the result, I guess. Thanks for writing

[00:43:30] And thanks to Barb Nangle for asking me to be on her podcast, Fragmented to Whole.

[00:43:36] That's what we've got this week. See you next time.

Thank You Marylou

[00:43:40] Spencer: Mary Lou, I want to say thank you for joining me today for a deep dive into tradition four and for bringing in some of the other Al-Anon literature that expands on the meaning and the ways in which we can use tradition four in our own lives. Thank you

[00:44:00] Marylou: thank you for inviting me. I, I've really gotten a lot out, out of the traditions, and I hope other people do too

Song 3

[00:44:06] Spencer: This last song that I picked, is actually one that I'm not familiar with. I've been hearing about this band a lot from a music critic podcast that I listen to. The band is the Buzzcocks. They're an early punk band from England. The song is titled Autonomy, and doesn't have a whole lot of lyrics, and says,

[00:44:28] “I'm a thing that's worth having. Yes, I would. Buys you your life, sir, if it could. I want you. Autonomy.”

[00:44:36] I think we all want some autonomy in our lives, and what Tradition Four teaches us is that we also want to balance that with our responsibility to everybody around us.

Outro

[00:44:56] Spencer: Thank you for listening, and please keep coming back. Whatever your problems, there are those among us who have had them too. If we did not talk about a problem you are facing today, feel free to contact us so we can talk about it in a future episode. May understanding, love, and peace grow in you one day at a time.