Step One: I don’t set myself up for failure

For many years I didn’t think there was anything I was powerless over in my own little world. I believed that I only needed to try harder or organize better in order to be in charge of any outcome.

In living with alcoholics, I tried many new techniques and hardened my resolve to keep them under control. My goal was to preserve order—or at least to appear orderly, logical, and responsible. I became very efficient.

Before I found Al-Anon, there were several years in which I began to see how fruitless my efforts were; I felt like such a failure. I now realize that I could only be ready to hear the recovery message when I could finally admit my failure—my powerlessness over others and their disease of alcoholism.

When I got to the program, my life didn’t seem unmanageable because I was the one holding the family together, caring for everyone, and preserving the image of happy togetherness. But when I could finally recognize how unmanageable my life truly had become, I became more open to looking at my life and myself in a different way.

I learned that we were all here because we were failing to manage our lives. And it came as a great relief to me that I was not supposed to manage anyone else’s life. Instead, I only had to concentrate on managing myself.

It is still a challenge for me to allow others to manage their own lives, but I now see that attempting to arrange things for others is what set me up for a great deal of frustration and failure.

Today I am reminded regularly that in addition to my powerlessness over alcohol, I also have no power over others’ thinking, decisions, reactions, and consequences. I want to manage taking care of my health and well-being, honoring my preferences, deciding my actions, directing my attitude, and keeping myself open to my own feelings and to new information from others.

Now that the burden of responsibility for the well-being of the entire world is lifting, I can try to respond to others with genuine love instead of judgment.

By Lois R., California
The Forum, January 2008

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