A Year

an excerpt from Better Boundaries

One year ago I walked into an Al-anon meeting.

In the previous month, I’d been to all sorts of 12 step meetings, looking for my home. The pamphlets didn’t describe me, or the people gaped at me — hungry eyes — fresh meat.

The last night of the year I ended up at an AA meeting, because an angel came and found me. I was there, wandering around the church annex looking for another meeting, but apparently I was the only one, and the loneliness of being stood up by other anonymous addicts in my tribe was intolerable.

A man popped out of the AA meeting down the hall, and asked if that’s what I had been looking for. And when I said no, and he saw my face, he invited me in, they welcomed me home.

Hannah calls me an “honorary alcoholic,” not for this reason, but because the nature of my disease has the same ancestry. My delicate constitution has prevented me from ever truly overindulging in alcohol, but my spirit has always been insatiably thirsty in the same way.

(maybe yours has, too)?

It had started as a Distraction from the incredible pain of infertility, and it followed me to the Bahamas, to the ashram, where I was supposed to Get Clear and Get Healed, or at least insulate myself from inflicting my poisonous thoughts and feelings into the healthy masses.

He shared Things with me that I’ve protected you from, that I’ll continue to protect you from, and allow the spirit of the Thing to find…