Have you ever been haunted? Have you had an experience that left a memory so clear you find yourself reliving it long after it is over? Perhaps a parent, another relative, or a former partner has taken up residence in your mind. Their voice whispers what to think, say, and do. You may not recognize how much you have been living by those messages until you begin to see the pain they have caused in your life and how your choices have affected people you love and are responsible for. Al-Anon gives you tools to recognize how your life has been haunted.
The voice you are still trying to please
These hauntings can take different forms. You may still relive painful experiences with an alcoholic parent. Or the voice may belong to someone who never drank but controlled your life so completely that you still struggle to make decisions of your own. That person may have died, may be out of your life, or may still be part of it. The old rules can keep their hold in any of those circumstances. It is those rules and their authority over your life that need to be laid to rest.
A belief can become ingrained in you without your realizing you have learned it. Years later, it can still control your choices, making it difficult to hear your own voice or the guidance of your Higher Power.
A voice from the grave may be one you are still trying to please.
The rules you grew up with can shape how you try to earn love and approval in adult relationships. You may find yourself trying to rescue or save someone, or falling into the habit of mothering, managing and manipulating them. So much of your attention goes toward pleasing the other person that you lose sight of your own wants and needs. Over time, you can lose your sense of who you are apart from that relationship.
Al-Anon can help you see the connection between those old voices and rules and the way you treat yourself and the people you love today. You begin to recognize when you are making choices to earn their approval and how much of your own life you have set aside in the process. Seeing that pattern is the beginning of developing a life of your own.
The Al-Anon program is gracefully simple and patient. It offers a way to live your life and learn to make choices of your own. As you work the Steps, changes can take place so gradually that you may not notice them until you awaken one day to find that a part of your past no longer haunts you. If you are willing to commit to practicing the Al-Anon program, change can happen.
Put them right back in the grave
When an old voice returns and begins to rule how you feel or act, recognize that familiar danger zone. A judgment learned years ago is reaching into the life you are living today. You may still fear the consequences you once faced for speaking up or making a choice of your own. That fear can keep you obeying an old rule long after the experience is over.
Putting those voices back in the grave means letting go of the authority that past experiences still have over your life. You can acknowledge the hurt and pain and ask God to help you speak with confidence about how you want to live today. As you develop that relationship, you can begin to trust your own voice. The Al-Anon program gives you tools to remind yourself:
“I have lived by your rules long enough. Through my relationship with God, I am learning to trust my own voice and make my own choices.”
Past experiences may take time to lose their hold. As you grow in the program, those voices can grow quieter. When an old thought or pattern returns during the day, you can recognize it and put it back in the past where it belongs. “One day at a time” is how you practice living in the present.
Let go and let God
In Al-Anon, the Twelve Steps are key to letting go of a past that keeps you from living a life of your own. They help you get to know yourself without depending on approval from the voices that haunt you. With the program’s tools and support, you develop a relationship with the God of your understanding.
The key to living a life of your own, free from the rule of old pain and anger, is in your relationship with your Higher Power and your willingness to maintain that relationship.
The voices from the past can make it difficult to hear your Higher Power’s voice in the present.
It is a matter of willingness and turning your problems over to God. It is also a willingness to listen to and talk with God, seeking the direction and serenity that come from that relationship. Why keep giving those old experiences the power to rule your life today? The goal is to “Let go and let God.”
A God squad
Let the God of your understanding lift you up and sustain you every day. Your communication and relationship with God become the center of your program. Meetings help you find support as you listen to other members’ experiences and recognize something of your own life in what they share.
Your communication and relationship with God become the center of your program.
You can ask someone with experience in the program to be your sponsor: someone you trust who can take you through the Twelve Steps and listen when you bring them a problem. A sponsor helps you learn the program’s tools and put them to use. The Steps give you a solid foundation for your life and your relationship with your Higher Power.
If your sponsor is unavailable, you can turn to other members you have come to know and trust in meetings. Their experience, guidance, and encouragement can help when the haunts return. They can become your “God squad.”
When the past starts to haunt you
Recognize the voice.
Whose approval am I still trying to earn?
Put its authority back in the past.
That person’s judgment does not have to rule your life today.
Find your own voice.
Learning to trust my own voice.
Let go and let God.
Ask the God of your understanding for direction, and take time to listen.
Reach out.
Let the encouragement of someone you trust help you find your way.
Practice this one day at a time. Each time you recognize an old haunting, you can turn back toward the life you are living today.
A loving map of daily living
The Al-Anon program is a loving map of daily living. Along with the Steps and the help of others, it offers a way toward peace and a clearer view of your own life. As From Survival to Recovery expresses it: “Our sight, once clouded and confused, will clear and we will be able to perceive reality and recognize truth.”
This is a path to peace.
