The Right to Be Wrong
Each group should be autonomous, except in matters affecting another group or Al-Anon or Alateen as a whole.
In Al-Anon, each group is autonomous except in matters affecting the whole. This means every group has the right to be wrong—to make their own decisions, learn from their own mistakes, find their own way. We don't micromanage each other's groups because autonomy is a form of respect.
But autonomy feels like abandonment when I apply it to the alcoholic or my adult child. If I let them make their own choices, they might choose badly. If I respect their autonomy, they might fail. And if they fail, won't I have failed them by not intervening?
This is the codependent's dilemma: I confuse intervention with love. I think protecting them from their mistakes is helping, when really it's just another form of control. Autonomy—the dignity of letting them make their own choices, even wrong ones—feels cruel. But it's actually the highest form of respect.
Al-Anon is teaching me that respecting someone's autonomy means trusting them with their own consequences. It means believing they're capable of learning from their mistakes without me managing the lesson plan. It's painful to watch someone I love choose badly. But removing their autonomy removes their dignity, and without dignity, there's no real relationship—just me governing someone who never asked to be ruled.
When I'm tempted to intervene in someone's autonomous choices, I can pause and ask: Am I respecting their dignity or trying to protect them from consequences? Can I trust them to learn from their own mistakes without me managing the outcome? What if letting them be wrong is the only way they learn to be right?
