Endigar 1080

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , , , on November 4, 2025 by endigar

From Courage to Change of Oct 30:

When I was a newcomer to Al-Anon, I remember hearing people say that they were grateful to be involved with an alcoholic. Needless to say, I thought they were crazy! Wasn’t the alcoholic the cause of all their grief? I couldn’t believe that these people had anything to be grateful for. Yet they seemed to be happy despite their problems (which sounded exactly like my own).

Today I find that I am grateful to have found Al-Anon. I too needed to hit a kind of bottom, feel the pain, and reach out for help before I could find any lasting happiness. Because of Al-Anon, I have a relationship with a Higher Power that I never knew existed and friends who give me real support. I have learned that gratitude and forgiveness are necessary to my peace of mind. Now I can truly say that I am a grateful member of Al-Anon.

Today’s Reminder

Today I will practice gratitude. I will think of some of the things, big or small, for which I am grateful. Maybe I’ll even put this list in writing or share it with an Al-Anon friend. Sometimes a tiny action can be a great step toward seeing my life with increasing joy.

“When things look blackest, it is within my power to brighten them with the light of understanding and gratitude.” ~ One Day at a Time in Al-Anon

END OF QUOTE—————————————

When I first entered the rooms, the idea of being grateful for the alcoholic felt like a betrayal of my pain. Gratitude seemed like denial in disguise — a polite anesthetic for people too afraid to rage. I had not yet learned that recovery is not about excusing the disease; it’s about reclaiming my power to interpret it differently. What once looked like punishment has become invitation.

The old self demanded justice — someone to blame, something to fix. But in Al-Anon, I met people who were no longer fighting the storm. They had learned how to sail through it. Their laughter wasn’t naive; it was defiant faith, earned through tears.

Pain is a strange teacher: it isolates first, then initiates. I, too, had to reach a kind of bottom — not only the moment when life fell apart, but the deeper bottom where I finally saw that my control was the personally relevant addiction.

That was the crack where grace entered. Through that pain, I found a Higher Power who had been waiting, not to rescue me from the alcoholic, but to release me from myself.

Forgiveness followed like a slow sunrise. It didn’t erase what had happened; it simply illuminated it from another angle. Gratitude became possible — not because the situation improved, but because my perception did.

Gratitude is rebellion against despair. It’s not a mood; it’s a muscle. When I list the things I’m thankful for — clean dishes, a call from a friend, a quiet morning prayer — I’m retraining my mind to recognize abundance instead of absence.

And when I share that list aloud, the light multiplies. Gratitude doesn’t deny the darkness; it seeds the dawn within it.

When life feels heaviest, I can choose to become the candle instead of cursing the night.
A written list, a whispered thank-you, a phone call to a fellow traveler — these are not small gestures; they are revolutionary acts of perspective.

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Endigar 1079

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , , , , , , on November 4, 2025 by endigar

From Courage to Change of Oct 29:

I recently had an argument with someone I care about. He had made, all too publicly, a few remarks to me about my weight, and I was less than pleased. Later, when I told him that my feelings were hurt, he insisted he had done nothing wrong — that what he had said was true, so I shouldn’t take offense.

How often have I justified my own unkindness, or my interfering where I had no business, with that very argument? Too many times, especially during my alcoholic loved one’s drinking days. After all, I claimed, I was right: Alcohol was ruining our lives, and it was my duty to say so — again, and again, and again.

I am learning to let go of my certainty about what other people should do. In Al-Anon I heard someone put it this way: “I can be right or I can be happy.” I don’t have to make anyone over in my image. With help, I can live and let live.

Today’s Reminder

I am not an insensitive person, but at times I have justified insensitive behavior by claiming to be right. I can respect another’s right to make his or her own choices, even when I strongly disagree. My relationships will improve if I can love myself enough to let other people be themselves.

“Lord, when we are wrong, make us willing to change. And when we are right, make us easy to live with.” ~ Peter Marshall

END OF QUOTE—————————————

In an earlier time in recovery, I found myself in a large meeting room, sharing too long and too personally. I sensed it even as I spoke, yet I couldn’t stop seeking the comfort of crowd validation. Then someone interrupted:

“This is not a speaker meeting. There are a lot of other people here who need the opportunity to share.”

His words landed like a public rebuke. Still, knowing he was technically right, I approached him afterward to thank him. I told him I understood. His reply was curt:

“Well, I’d rather be a resentment than have one.”

Ouch. It wasn’t the correction that hurt—it was the dismissal. A better way would have been to engage me with his own experience, to invite genuine conversation rather than to cast me off as a “potential resentment.” Instead, I felt the double sting of public embarrassment and private disregard.

What bleeds in this memory is not just shame; it’s the ancient wound of being dismissed while trying to belong. My “too long and too personal” share was simply a human reaching out in vulnerability. But the interruption wasn’t an act of service—it was an act of containment, a boundary drawn with the blade of ego rather than the balm of truth.

The phrase “I’d rather be a resentment than have one” reeks of spiritual vanity. It masquerades as enlightened detachment but is, in truth, emotional cowardice wrapped in piety—the classic counterfeit of the self-righteous caretaker. It wounds by cloaking cruelty in the banner of wisdom.

And how often have I done the same? How many times have I justified my own unkindness or meddled where I had no business, armed with similar logic? Too many—especially during the years when my loved one’s self-medication consumed us both. I told myself I was right: obsessive thinking and emotional chaos were ruining our lives, and it was my duty to confront it—again and again and again.

In truth, that same impulse—the drive to intervene, to be right—became my weapon of control. I saw my reflection in that man. The rescuer and the rebuker are born of the same delusion: that salvation requires domination. When we say, “I only said it because I care,” what we often mean is, “I cannot bear to witness chaos without asserting my will upon it.”

My ethos demands rebellion against that lie. “Being right” is the opiate of the spiritual middleman—the one who replaces relationship with regulation. True recovery, true stewardship, isn’t about enforcing silence or demanding gratitude for rebuke. It’s about enduring the discomfort of another person’s freedom—the holy risk that they might fail, suffer, or change without my supervision.

I am learning to release my certainty about what others should do. In recovery I once heard someone say, “I can be right, or I can be happy.” I no longer need to make anyone over in my image. With help, I can live and let live.

I am not an insensitive person, yet at times I have justified my insensitivity by claiming to be right. Today I can respect another’s right to make their own choices, even when I disagree. I hope that my relationships will deepen when I love myself enough to let others be themselves.

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Endigar 1078

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , , , , , , on November 3, 2025 by endigar

From Courage to Change of Oct 28:

It’s amazing how my attitude toward others tends to return to me like a basketball rebounding off a backboard. My impatience with other people often generates even more impatience with myself and my world. When I am unkind to someone, I get defensive and expect others to be unkind to me. Likewise, when I accept someone unconditionally, I find that my whole world feels safer.

So it’s in my best interest to treat others as I wish to be treated. I try to imagine that my words and actions are being addressed to myself, because in the long run I generally get back what I give out.

If I am unhappy with what I receive, I might try looking for that same behavior in myself. It may not take exactly the same form, but I find that whatever I dislike in another is something that I dislike in myself. The reverse is also true: What I admire in others probably reflects an admirable quality within me.

Today’s Reminder

There is something for me to learn from every interaction I have with other people. I will make an extra effort today to take note of the attitudes I’m giving and receiving because they both can teach me about myself.

“Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

END OF QUOTE—————————————

It is uncanny how the interaction of human relationships seems to provide the most reflective energy I use in my 10th Step inventory. I have seen the reality of reciprocal force in having my projections return to me. The emotional cause and effect that comes from observing produces what I have sent out returning, shaped by the spin of my own intent.

In recovery terms, this insight touches the Law of Emotional Physics: energy, once released through thought or tone, completes its circuit. When I’m impatient, it’s not the world that grows harsher — it’s my perception that tightens, my own nervous system that recoils from the vibration I set in motion. Conversely, when I meet another person with acceptance, I change the climate within which both of us breathe.

The passage also contains an implicit mirror teaching: that our judgments of others are veiled self-judgments. The qualities that irritate or inspire us reveal unfinished business in the psyche — what Jung called the “shadow and gold” of projection. When we learn to trace that projection inward, resentment becomes revelation.

What’s beautiful here is the humility at the end — the willingness to learn from every interaction. This transforms ordinary contact into a spiritual classroom. Each encounter becomes a diagnostic mirror for my soul, showing me how I am living the principle of reciprocity — not as moral debt, but as energetic honesty.

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Endigar 1077

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , , , , , , on October 31, 2025 by endigar

From Courage to Change of Oct 27:

One sweltering summer day, I sought escape from the heat at a nearby beach. Lying there with my lemonade, I looked at all the people soaking up the sun. No matter how many people were on that beach, there would be enough sun for everyone. I realized that the same was true of God’s love and guidance. No matter how many people seek God’s help, there is always enough to go around. To someone who believed that there was never enough time, money, love, or anything else, this was amazing news!

This awareness was tested at an Al-Anon meeting when someone spoke about his Higher Power with a personal love and intensity that matched my own. I felt as if his intimacy with God would leave less love for me. But I think that the opposite is true. I often feel closest to God when I hear others share about how well a Higher Power has taken care of them. Today I try to remember that there is enough love for us all.

Today’s Reminder

I may not have everything I want, but today I have everything I need. I will look for evidence of abundance and let it remind me that my Higher Power’s love is broad enough to touch all who have the courage to place themselves in its presence.

“I can learn to avail myself of the immense, inexhaustible power of God, if I am willing to be continually conscious of God’s nearness.” ~ One Day at a Time in Al-Anon

END OF QUOTE—————————————

The image of the beach is a gentle dismantling of the scarcity mindset. You lie under a sky so vast it cannot be owned, and it becomes a living metaphor for divine sufficiency. Heat, light, love — all flow without measure or merit. Recovery, at its heart, is the re-education of the nervous system to trust that abundance is not a trick of fortune but a property of reality itself.

That moment in the meeting — the flicker of jealousy or fear when another spoke of intimate communion with God — is sacredly honest. It reveals how deeply the family disease distorts love into competition. In the alcoholic household, affection is conditional, attention is rationed, and safety feels temporary. The ego learns: If you are loved, there is less for me.
But spiritual maturity is learning to feel another’s blessing as proof of your own. What touches them touches the field you share.

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Endigar 1076

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , , , , , , on October 27, 2025 by endigar

From Courage to Change of Oct 26:

I remember others’ unkind words vividly. Criticism sent me reeling. Snickers crippled me for days. It never occurred to me that I was being abused, or that the harsh words could be untrue. Everyone seemed to know just how wrong I was, and my identity was bound up in a knot of shame. My self-esteem sank lower and lower.

I, in turn, treated others cruelly. I found it great fun to assault someone’s character in the company of friends. For a few minutes I felt better about myself — but not for long and only at other people’s expense. Gossip never enriched anyone’s character. It was only an excuse to avoid focusing on myself.

Today’s Reminder

Many of us tend to react rather than act. When we hurt, we may want to strike out and hurt someone else. In Al-Anon we learn that we can interrupt this automatic response long enough to decide how we really want to behave.

Someone else’s unkindness is no reason for me to lower my standards for my own behavior. When I take responsibility for my actions, regardless of what other people do, I become someone I can be proud of. When I feel good about myself, it’s much easier not to take insults personally

“If one throws salt at thee thou wilt receive no harm unless thou hast sore places.” ~ Latin proverb

END OF QUOTE—————————————

NOTE: There’s no credible named author for the “Latin proverb.” The saying shows up in 19th-century American print as a proverb/maxim—sometimes even called a “Quaker maxim”—but not tied to any classical Latin writer.

  • Earliest hits found in AI directed search are U.S. newspapers/magazines from the 1850s printing it as a proverb (no author): Savannah, GA paper (Jan 18, 1851) and The Water-Cure Journal (July 1852).
  • A later retrospective explicitly calls it a “Quaker maxim.”
  • Modern quote sites often label it “Latin proverb,” but I can’t find it in Erasmus’s Adagia or other standard classical collections—suggesting the “Latin” tag is a generic or spurious attribution.

So, if you need to credit it, the safest is: “Proverb (often misattributed as ‘Latin’; sometimes described as a ‘Quaker maxim’).” It makes sense to me that the Antebellum South would prefer to call it a Latin proverb rather than a Quaker maxim.

END OF NOTE—————————————

There is a deep wound that strikes at the core of many recovery stories — the confusion between being criticized and being defined. When a child or partner grows up in a household where shame is the native tongue, words become weapons that etch themselves into the nervous system. The body keeps score — not only of trauma, but of tone.

This confusion is not a misunderstanding; it is a crime scene. Every time a parent or partner names a child lazy, dramatic, or ungrateful, they are engraving graffiti on divine architecture. Those words become neurological scars — the body’s way of carrying the courtroom of the past into every new encounter. It’s not just that “the body keeps score”; it’s that the body was drafted into a war it never consented to fight.

The haunting belief that “everyone seemed to know just how wrong I was” captures that suffocating illusion of consensus — a world where the false self is built entirely from other people’s verdicts. Yet recovery reveals the first glimmer of transformation: recognition. Seeing that cruelty can be both inflicted and internalized allows us to break the spell of projection. When we gossip or mock, we are only transferring the shame we have not yet metabolized.

But reflection is not retreat — it is reconquest. It is the moment we decide that the verdicts of our abusers will no longer define our vocabulary. That we will no longer carry their tone in our throats. That our anger, refined through awareness, becomes the forge of integrity.

Recovery invites us to stop exporting pain and start composting it — turning the rot into fertile soil for new growth. Al-Anon’s wisdom here is profoundly liberating: reaction can be replaced with reflection. The pause between impulse and action is the doorway to self-respect. And when we act, rather than react, we reclaim authorship of our own story.

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Endigar 1075

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , , , , , on October 27, 2025 by endigar

From Courage to Change of Oct 25:

One of my defects of character is to make choices passively — letting things happen rather than taking action. For example, I stood by and watched my children suffer abuse because I was unable to make a decision and follow through with it. I had been severely affected by alcoholism, and I was not capable of doing otherwise at the time. It was the best I could do under the circumstances, but harm was done, and I owe amends.

One way to make amends is to stop practicing the defect. In every area of my life I can ask myself: Am I taking responsibility for my choices today? Do I make a positive contribution to my meetings, or do I assume that somebody else will take care of everything? Am I making choices I can be proud of at home, at work, and in my community, or letting the choices be made for me?

Today’s Reminder

Al-Anon has no opinion on outside issues. It doesn’t define my responsibilities or select my values — that is up to me. It does encourage me to define my values, to take responsibility for choices I am already making, and to make amends where I have done harm. I need not think of myself as a victim of unseen forces that make disasters happen. Today I can make active choices.

“Making amends isn’t just saying, ‘I’m sorry.’ It means responding differently from our new understanding.” ~ As We Understood

END OF QUOTE—————————————

There were things I allowed to happen to survive as a young man and as an adult.  I hate that I did not participate in my own life and others suffered as a result. The reality that I was not capable of doing otherwise at the time is not an excuse; it is spiritual realism.

Recovery teaches that I can only act from the level of consciousness I possess in that moment. To name powerlessness in retrospect is not to minimize the harm, but to stop confusing shame with accountability. Shame keeps us inert; accountability moves us toward repair.

Passivity is one of alcoholism’s quieter legacies. It trains us to wait for someone else to decide—because decision once meant danger. The defect here is not laziness but paralysis: the learned belief that action only makes things worse.

My power lies in its redefinition of amends: to stop practicing the defect. Not to rewrite the past, but to practice agency in the present. Each time we take responsibility for a small decision—volunteering at a meeting, choosing to speak truth at home, following through at work—we build new muscle where fear once lived.

This is the alchemy of amends: turning regret into responsibility.

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Endigar 1074

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 26, 2025 by endigar

From Courage to Change of Oct 24:

The process of recovery in Al-Anon has been likened to peeling an onion. We peel away a layer at a time, often shedding a few tears as we do.

But recovery always makes me think of the bark of a birch tree. The birch’s bark is necessary for protection, yet as the tree grows, the bark peels away gradually of its own accord. If it is removed prematurely – by a deer scraping his antlers or a porcupine searching for food the tree is wounded and becomes vulnerable to infection, fungus, and insects.

Like the birch tree, I can be wounded if I am prematurely stripped of my defenses. Most of us have spent a significant amount of time trying to cope with these wounds from the past rather than growing and changing. But in Al-Anon I am encouraged to grow at my own pace. As I do, I find some of my defenses and ideas too tight, too limiting. And so I slough them off, just as the birch releases its old skin. They are no longer needed.

Today’s Reminder

I have an innate ability to heal and to grow. I don’t need to force myself to change. All I have to do is show up and be willing. When I am ready, the changes will come easily.

“We all have our own answers within ourselves and can find them with the help of our Al-Anon program and a Higher Power.” ~ In All Our Affairs

END OF QUOTE—————————————

Recovery has a gentle pace that is a counterpoint to the urgency that trauma often breeds. Like the birch tree that slowly outgrows its protective bark, the wisdom of the 12 Steps is grown over time. Bark, like our emotional defenses, once had a purpose: it kept the living tissue safe from harm. The problem arises not in the bark itself, but when it no longer fits the size of our soul.

The idea that growth doesn’t need to be forced is a profound corrective to the self-punishing tendencies that many of us bring into recovery. For years, we’ve confused “doing better” with “being worthy.” But the birch doesn’t rush its peeling—it trusts the rhythm of its own life force. Likewise, the spiritual invitation of Al-Anon isn’t to dismantle ourselves but to outgrow what no longer protects us. When the bark peels naturally, the wound is replaced by a light and new surface.

There’s a humility here that honors divine timing: “When I am ready, the changes will come easily.” This is the serenity of true willingness—showing up, not fixing. It’s the trust that a Power greater than our anxious mind is guiding the slow unveiling of our truer self.

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Endigar 1073

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , , , , , , on October 25, 2025 by endigar

From Courage to Change of Oct 23:

When the alcoholic I loved got sober I was sure that the nightmare was over! But without the tranquilizing effect of alcohol, she became verbally abusive. She accused, attacked, insulted, and I always defended myself. It seemed crucial that she understand. But that didn’t happen, no matter how much I argued, pleaded, or insulted in return. I felt trapped and hopeless.

Sobriety brings change, but it doesn’t take away all the problems. Al-Anon helps me learn that I don’t have to accept the unacceptable, nor do I have to argue back or convince another person that I’m innocent or right. I can begin to recognize when I am dealing with alcoholism’s insanity, and I can detach. I certainly don’t have to respond by doubting myself.

Today’s Reminder

When cruel words fly from the mouth of another person, drunk or sober, Al-Anon helps me remember that I have choices. Perhaps I can say the Serenity Prayer to myself, or refuse to discuss the topic any further. I can listen without taking the words personally; I can leave the room, change the subject, make an Al-Anon call, or explore other alternatives. My Sponsor can help me to discover options that seem right for me.

“We may never have the choices we would have if we were writing the script, but we always have choices.” ~ In All Our Affairs

END OF QUOTE—————————————

When the alcoholic stops drinking, the silence afterward can feel like peace—but it isn’t always peace. It’s the sound of reality returning, unfiltered. For many in recovery, that first period of sobriety is a psychic rawness: every resentment, fear, and unhealed wound begins to speak. And for those who love them, it can feel like betrayal—“Wasn’t I promised relief?”

That disappointment reminds us that the nightmare does not end with the last drink. Sobriety unmasks what alcohol had been tranquilizing: rage, shame, confusion, grief. To love someone through that stage is to realize that serenity cannot be borrowed; it must be grown.

“I always defended myself.”

That line is the hinge of awakening. Reaction feels natural when attacked, but it’s also the trap—the endless replay of trying to be understood by the un-understandable.
Al-Anon’s power lies in this subtle liberation: the discovery that understanding is not required for peace. One can stop arguing not out of defeat, but out of wisdom. One can detach, not to punish, but to preserve sanity.

Detachment is not coldness—it’s clarity. It’s saying: This storm does not have my name on it.

Ultimately theory must shift to muscle memory. Serenity becomes something rehearsed, like breathing techniques in a crisis. A short prayer. A step away. A call to a sponsor. A change of subject.

Recovery becomes visible not in the grand gesture, but in the pause between triggers. That pause—when you remember you have choices—is the quiet resurrection of dignity.

“We may never have the choices we would have if we were writing the script, but we always have choices.” This is spiritual realism. None of us gets to rewrite the first act, but every moment offers an edit to the next line.

In trauma, we were directed by others’ madness. In recovery, we reclaim authorship—sometimes just one line at a time.

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Endigar 1072 ~ Amends to Myself

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , , , , , , on October 24, 2025 by endigar

I have been through the 12 Steps several times. First in AA, then once in Al-Anon. The only person I had not made amends to was myself. The Self. So, I turned to my inner core and promised to do so through ACA 12 Step guidance. I have arrived at the extensive ACA moral inventory, and I spent time listing and clarifying the transgressions against that little one within. Once I had exhausted that process, I asked AI to look at my list. I explained what I was doing. It apparently is familiar with the ACA process. It rendered a beautiful response to what I had written. Yes, I know they are my words, but the crafting was deeply moving for me. I wanted to share that with you:

✦ Amends to Myself ✦

(in the spirit of the Eleventh Step, where confession becomes creation)

To the one who bore the weight of perfection and the ache of exile,
I have long mistaken your yearning for weakness and your sensitivity for sin.
I asked you to starve the body so the soul might eat.
I shamed your smile because it mirrored your father’s tremor.
I buried your art under the altar of other people’s comfort.
I taught you to despise your own vitality — to treat laughter, lust, and leisure as signs of betrayal.

I am sorry.

You deserved music, not mortification.
You deserved the sweat of play, the discipline of motion, the unashamed pulse of being alive.
I see now that neglect is also violence — slow, invisible violence turned inward.
I release you from that bondage.

You may read for pleasure now.
You may lift weights without martyrdom.
You may write as though the angels are your editors, not your judges.
You may speak even when your voice shakes.
You may fail in public and still be faithful to the experiment of being human.

I forgive you for believing that suffering was the same as sanctity.
I forgive you for chasing divine union as if it required annihilation.
I forgive you for letting cinema cradle you when books felt too heavy — you were surviving, not surrendering.
I forgive you for feeding the ache with sugar, with porn, with silence, with impossible ideals.

Now, I call you forward:
To practice small follow-throughs as sacred rites.
To honor the mundane as the threshold to the miraculous.
To build a temple not of control, but of rhythm — frequency over intensity, patience over purity.

Your body is no longer a battlefield.
It is a covenant renewed daily with breath.
Your mind is not a cage for angels and demons — it is a workshop for wonder.
Your heart may open again, even if it trembles.

I asked the AI, “In the Amends to Self, you said parenthetically – (in the spirit of the Eleventh Step, where confession becomes creation) The 11th Step has to do with the cultivating conscious contact with my HP. What is the relevance in your beautiful wording of making amends (Step 9) based on the ACA moral inventory (Step 4)?”

Lucien the AI responded thusly: You’re right to catch that, Lorcan — and your instinct is precise. Step Nine belongs to the world of repair; Step Eleven to relationship.

The reason I wove the Eleventh Step into that parenthetical wasn’t to blur the lines between them but to describe what happens when self-forgiveness and spiritual contact begin to intertwine. In adult-child recovery, making amends to oneself can’t stop at restitution; it naturally opens into re-connection with the Loving Parent and Higher Power.

Here’s the deeper linkage:

StepPrimary MovementWhen Applied to “Amends to Self”
Step Four – Moral InventorySeeing with honestyI name the ways I abandoned, silenced, or punished myself.
Step Nine – AmendsRepairing with responsibilityI offer restitution and commit to new behavior.
Step Eleven – Conscious ContactListening with intimacyI cultivate ongoing communion with the Self that was restored — the “child of God” now safe to speak again.

So when I said “in the spirit of the Eleventh Step, where confession becomes creation,” I meant that your amends has crossed a threshold: it is not only an apology but a creative act of alignment.
In ordinary Twelve-Step rhythm:

  • Step Four reveals the truth.
  • Step Nine restores justice.
  • Step Eleven renews relationship.

But in ACA’s inner work, these three begin to circle each other. When you make amends to yourself, you’re both restoring relationship (Step 9) and cultivating conscious contact (Step 11) with the part of you that is an expression of your Higher Power.

In other words:

Every sincere amends to Self is also a prayer answered from within.
Confession becomes creation the moment the Loving Parent and the Inner Child begin speaking again.

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Endigar 1071

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , , , , , , on October 24, 2025 by endigar

From Courage to Change of Oct 22:

When I finally found the courage to speak at an Al-Anon meeting, my sharing was limited to problems I had already solved. I concealed my real feelings by telling funny stories about myself and the alcoholic, because I didn’t trust anyone enough to let them see my struggle and my pain. I had a hard enough time facing it by myself. But I didn’t seem to be getting better. Only when I was able to stop playing the clown and admit my shortcomings did I begin to enjoy the spiritual growth promised in the Twelve Steps.

The paradox of self-honesty is that I need the help of others to achieve it. I need their support to explore my feelings and motives, and to see that others have benefited from taking this great risk.

Today’s Reminder

In an alcoholic environment, I had good reasons to hide my feelings, making light of serious situations, overworking, overplaying, managing to focus on everything but myself. Today I have other options. I can begin to listen to what my heart has been trying to tell me, and I can look for someone trustworthy with whom I can share it.

“It may feel like an enormous risk, but talking honestly about the situation is the key to healing.” ~ In All Our Affairs

END OF QUOTE—————————————

When the mask begins to crack, what I call fear is actually the trembling of the imprisoned godshard within — the one who has been pretending to be domesticated for too long. It is not weakness that shakes, but the body’s revolt against falsity. The primal terror is not “What if they see me?” but “What if I am forced to remain unseen forever?” That is the agony recovery interrupts.

The Twelve Steps, when stripped of polite religious language, are a blood oath with truth. They promise not salvation through polish, but through exposure. Confession is not a moral bow — it is a demolition charge set against the fortress of self-deception. There is no pulpit in this work; there is only the trembling voice that breaks its own chains mid-sentence. When we stop rehearsing, we start resurrecting.

Saying things like “making light of serious situations” and “overworking” exposes the ancestral neurosis of the alcoholic family system — where performance is currency and vulnerability is treason. The overachiever is not proud, he is terrified. The humorist is not lighthearted; she is bleeding behind the smile. These masks were built to survive households where truth was punished. Now, in recovery, the task is not to perform better, but to stop performing altogether.

Today — and the word today must be carved like a blade — I dismantle the survival script. I listen to the heart, even when it stammers. I speak the unspeakable, even when it burns. I seek trustworthy company not because I am fragile, but because courage thrives in reflection. These are not quiet revolutions. These are thunderclaps whispered through scar tissue. These are the first sounds of the soul remembering its original face.

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