When it finally crashed through all the walls and emotional barriers I had built, the truth of this simple statement was like a beam of light in a dark, scary basement: “A changed attitude on our part may help bring about recovery.” (A Merry-Go-Round Called Denial) I had resisted changing anything about me – because when I went to AlAnon, it was not my drinking that was the problem – it was the person I loved who was drinking themselves to death!*
I am a sl-o-o-o-o-ow changer. But I found that even the smallest change in my response to the alcoholic and the others in the family who kept enabling the alcoholic’s drinking was noticeable.
I quit reacting: Just because they say it doesn’t make it so.
I quit taking their inventory – although I put off for too long taking my own!
I came to believe a God was in charge, and powerful enough to help people I love.
And I am still coming to the bottom line:
You can reach the conscience of another person by first being changed yourself, and out of that change, in love, reaching the other person. (C. John Miller, Saving Grace, page 187)
When I first came to AlAnon, God was a set of rules – a Cosmic Kill-Joy. However, seeing how others turned their loved ones over to the care of God, and got busy letting Him change them was a startling new direction out of the abyss of grief that living with an active alcoholic seems.
Fake it ‘til you make it — sounded like crazy advice but worth trying.
Becoming willing to change was at least worth a try.
In time, God did what I never could . . . the alcoholic I loved found sobriety, and faith in God through Christ.
We are the wire, God is the current. Our only power is to let the current pass through us. — Carlo Carretto
I will let go and let God’s power flow through me. (In God’s Care, July5)
*Why Do I have to Change? I Am Not the One Who is Crazy Here!
