We have been pretty busy in Clan-Land. This is the beginning of our 4th week of intensive rehab. All 3 of us have completed 3 weeks of classes and meetings. We are all tired. We are all frustrated with the continued emphasis of "God" in everything, no matter how often they add "as you understand Him". We were actually told, this past Thursday, that AA really IS a non-denominational group, but if we wanted to not say The Lord's Prayer at the end of each meeting, there was a meeting at a Jewish Synagogue that doesn't say it. NO SHIT! Sue and I talked about this on the way home, and decided it would be just "nice" if before breaking out into a huge circle of hand-holding people, there was a mention that if you wanted to join the circle you are welcome, and if you wished to leave, that is perfectly acceptable too. It would take a few seconds of time, and be much more considerate of the people who do not practice Christian religions.
Sue and I both have colds again. I am thinking it is stress and poor sleep causing us to become sicker this winter than usual. Tom is mostly doing well. He has some rough days, but wades through it as best he can with as much support as he can stand. I am working a minimum of 48 hours a week, as the senior insurance claim business has increased 35% this year. Yeah Boomers! Sue is doing teacher hours, which is mostly 6 days a week, minimum, and Tom is doing his work as required, doing alot of the household running, and assisting a friend in need.
One of the books that is strongly recommended to read is "The Language of Letting Go" by Melody Beattie. I have been slogging thru' at a snails-pace but this meditation struck a cord with me.
Today, I will be gentle with myself, understanding that sometimes to reach the middle ground of balance, I need to explore the peaks and valleys. Sometimes, the only way I can extricate myself from a valley is to jump high enough to land on a peak, and then slowly ease myself down.
Have a good week everyone. Be gentle with Yourselves.
T
Thanks for the update. Have been checking on you, and realizing you are buzy, but, of course, trying not to worry a bit when you were scarce. Having my own probs with parent illness so appreciate your affirmation.
ReplyDeleteYou all remain in my thoughts and prayers. May peace be yours, permeating all that you are and all that you do.
ReplyDeleteTapestry
Hello T,
ReplyDeleteI don't remember whether I have ever commented on one of your posts before. Anyway, I am interested you have been reading a book with that title. I haven't read it myself, but "letting go" is something I have found very important and useful.
Letting go of one's thoughts is the only letting go I know about, and I cannot think of any other kind that would be much use. It's our thoughts that cause us suffering.
I'm not a religious man, but I have found a very useful device for this purpose is to repeat a mantra or prayer continually. Whenever thoughts are present that we do not need - which means most of the time - I simply say that mantra or prayer over and over, letting it take the place of the unwanted thoughts. I have tried different mantras and prayers, at the moment I am using what is known in the West as "the Jesus prayer." If you don't know it, you can soon google it. It's more effective than you might at first think, if you persist in it.
Best wishes
Malcolm
"if you wanted to join the circle you are welcome, and if you wished to leave, that is perfectly acceptable too."
ReplyDeleteWhy don't you just stay out of the hand-holding circle?
Good to hear how you are all doing and that things seem to be staying positive......."be gentle with yourselves" id very good advice.
ReplyDeleteStay well
HSxx
This has indeed been a very intensive and at times difficult, and at others headily positive, experience. I appreciate those who are hanging in here with us even as the frequency of our writing here has diminished, and the nature of our content here has become more inwardly focused on more "vanilla" health issues. Thank you so very much for your support and positive energy.
ReplyDeleteOrdalie, in response to your comment, "Why don't you just stay outside the circle?" question, that choice would seem to contradict one of the key premises of the AA/12 step treatment model.
We are continually counseled to turn out lives over to God "as we know him." We are told that the only way to recover is to do that. We are told that unless we do that our prognosis is jail, institutionalization, then death.
We are told that we are not involved in a religiously-based program. We are then told that there is no religious denomination that this model favors (a seemingly odd claim for a program with a "non-religious basis" to have to make.) This denial is offered several times each class and meeting. Then at the end of everyone of these "non-religiously based programs" be they rehabilitation program classes, therapy sessions, or AA meetings, everyone stands in a circle holding hands reciting the Lord's Prayer (certainly not a secular mantra)and then chanting, "Keep coming back. It works if you work it." The assertion that this is not a religious worship defies any sort of logic.
As for why not just stand outside the circle, and not pray with everyone else, why should some of those in the rehab. class, which we are btw paying over $8,000.00 to participate in, have to be excluded. One of the other oft counseled pieces of wisdom that is imparted to us is that "the group can be our higher power, or a source of higher power" that can enable us to overcome our powerlessness in the face of the powerful, cunning, baffling enemy............alcohol. Assuming that is the case, how would we be benefited from being excluded from the ritual group experience that is to help us experience that group power? Why is it that if one is an observant Jew, or Muslim, or some other non-
Christian believer, or just a "plain old non-believer" should be excluded from this benefit that is essential to the 12 step recovery we are seeking?
That is why I don't stand off to the side, even as I feel like a hypocrit praying to a religion that I know to be a huge fraud.
All the best,
Tom
Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've imagined.
The book "Alcoholics Anonymous" has a wealth of prayers in them. There is the Third Step Prayer, for example, which several groups in my home town use to close meetings. Look on page 63 in the second paragraph. It starts "God, I offer myself to thee...".
ReplyDeleteRemember also that the 12 Traditions are as much a part of the AA program of recovery as the 12 Steps. Please look at Tradition Two. "Our leaders are but trusted servants, they do not govern." Has this group held a Group Conscience around the Lord's Prayer issue?
My experience with AA has been that the members are very earnest about being non-sectarian. The last thing anybody wants is that any religious "trappings" present a barrier to the spiritual aspects of recovery.
Just for today, I will not be angry
ReplyDeleteJust for today, I will not worry.
Just for today, I will be grateful.
Just for today, I will do my work honestly.
Just for today, I will be kind to every living thing.
- Reiki Principles
It's not a bad way to live life.
AA is not the way trust me i was thrown in rehab at 14 are you going confidently in theway you dreamed? an outdated 1930s way of thinking is not the way. do what you have to for the courts but get aay from this cult as fast as you can. there is another way
ReplyDeleteAs long as the 3 of you can find so many reasons to reject the AA program, or any other cessation program, you will not have to face the painful prospect of changing the many, many attitudes and behaviors which have, in your case, resulted in this very serious problem.
ReplyDeleteOr you can choose to take what you like and leave the rest.