Preserve Integrity and Identity
Our Sixth Tradition has taught me to preserve my own integrity and to protect my own identity.
Before Al-Anon I lost myself completely in other people's needs and crises. I had no sense of my own integrity or identity separate from the alcoholic and the chaos. I became whoever others needed me to be. I abandoned myself repeatedly to manage everyone else. I thought that was love. It was actually self-erasure.
Our Sixth Tradition has taught me to preserve my own integrity and to protect my own identity. Preserve and protect – active words. Not discover or create but preserve and protect what's already there. My integrity exists. My identity exists. But they need protecting because the disease of alcoholism attacks them. Living with alcoholism taught me to sacrifice my integrity to keep peace and abandon my identity to manage crisis.
Tradition Six teaches me I don't have to do that anymore. I can preserve my integrity – stay true to my own values even when others disagree. I can protect my identity – know who I am separately from who others need me to be. This isn't selfish. It's essential to my recovery.
Preserving integrity and protecting identity are ongoing practices not one-time achievements.
When I'm tempted to abandon my integrity to keep peace or erase my identity to manage someone else's crisis, I can remember Tradition Six. I preserve and protect who I am. That's not selfish – it's recovery. What values am I compromising? What part of myself am I abandoning? I can stop and reclaim it.
