One Day at a Time in Al-Anon:
This is the story of a newcomer to Al-Anon who was not a newcomer… certainly not a novice, for she had the courage to break out of a situation that was hampering her work in the program.
Seeing a new face at the meeting, the chairman asked her to tell about herself. Instead of launching into a recital of her domestic problems (which turned out to be quite severe) – she told what had made her leave the group where she’d started some months before.
“Quite frankly,” she said, “I’m shopping around for a group I can feel comfortable in. I grabbed Al-Anon like a life-preserver, which it certainly is for me. I joined a group, never missed meetings, and read Al-Anon literature every day. That’s how I got the idea that everybody in a group, and everyone in the fellowship, too, are equals. The group I belonged to was run – and I DO mean run, by a managing old-timer who ruled everything with an iron hand. She’d been secretary for eight years, chaired the meetings, decided on the programs. She knew what was good for us, all right! We didn’t even have to think for ourselves. And I couldn’t see that anybody was making much progress – the membership was what you might call a shifting population. Most of them just gave up on Al-Anon-and all because of this one person. I didn’t give up, so here I am, hoping for a group where I can really see the Al-Anon fellowship in action.”