“Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.” -Step 5 from the Al-Anon Family Groups One of the unspoken rules that children growing up in families impacted by alcohol and drug addiction learn is “Don’t Talk.” (Claudia...
“Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.” -Step 4 from the Al-Anon Family Groups When I tell my family recovery story, which I do regularly, I try to talk about parts of my life that illustrate the impact the disease of alcoholism has had in my...
“Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.” -Step 3 from the Al-Anon Family Groups I have a tendency to over-complicate things. When my mind became open to consider that there could be a Higher Power that just might...
“Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. -Step 2 from the Al-Anon Family Groups I didn’t need to be restored to sanity. I was the sane person in our household. I was the sober one. I was making all the decisions. I was taking...
“We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.” -Step 1 from the Al-Anon Family Groups When I was new to family recovery, I wasn’t certain how Step 1 would apply to me. I knew that my life was unmanageable (I was the kind of...
Slamming doors. Broken dishes. Arguments that the neighbors could hear clearly. Tears. Unkind words. And, conversely the resonant sound of hostile silence. The disease of alcoholism had wedged itself into the middle of our marriage. When the members of family recovery...
