My Experience At An Meeting Experience

On August 24th at 10:00 a.m I attended an AL ANON meeting at Western Oaks Christian Church. The church was located at 8100 N.W 23rd street across from the Buffalo Grill where I have routinely dined at for years. I was forced to put multiple open meetings in my cell phone calendar so that by some miracle it could spontaneously coincide with my hectic work schedule. So when the stars aligned and I had one hour of spare time I drove to a meeting and was caught completely off guard by details I forgot to list in my calendar notes. I forgot to list if the meetings were all mens or womens and I hadn’t even considered how a woman 's meeting would react to a man sitting in and observing. I would be figuring that out very quickly just how they would …show more content…
I explained that my passion for this career were ignited by the dysfunction plagued upon my family by alcohol and drugs. I told them of my own personal struggles early in life and why I felt I could relate to both sides of the suffering from both the alcoholic and their loved ones. They all gave me amazing feedback reassuring me that they were glad to have me attend and I was in for a great meeting. Before attending an AL ANON meeting the preconceived notions I had were that it was going to be more empathy based and less methodical. Also I thought the demographic would of been younger and the people would of still been directly involved in the Alcoholics life. I didn’t realize that the Al ANON meetings had their own twelve steps & traditions and focused on self and the alcoholic alike. It taught these women to deal with the reality that they can’t change the people they love but they can change the way the deal with it. Whenever they opened with the serenity prayer it really became clear to me the struggle faced by family and friends when someone becomes powerless to the pursuit of …show more content…
These resonated with my deeply because it is the same topic discussed in the A.A meeting I attended the week before! Then a woman halted my mental overload whenever she said,” holding resentment is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to get sick,” This seemed so honest and spot on I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since the meeting. Moreover, another thing that caught my attention deeply was the short passages they each read from their books before sharing their relation to making that step. The group itself that seemed deeply rooted with experience in this steps as most women quoted it directly from memory and spoke of their commitment to these meetings dating further than 40 years back. The meeting had about 20 women with only three beginners all in their twenties and on their first step. These women seemed to draw strength and guidance from the steps and the women that have completed them and now can offer their wisdom. The stories they shared were very detailed descriptions of their experiences as daughters with alcoholic fathers, wives in abusive relationships, and mothers living with their children 's