The Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous by Anonymous

Author:Anonymous
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hazelden Publishing

Visualize this scenario: it is a hot September evening in 1969. A fortyish woman is standing in her kitchen. She is nose-to-nose with her seventeen-year-old daughter. The woman holds a smoldering cigarette in one hand, a cocktail glass in the other. She is berating her seventeen-year-old daughter. She is angry and scared because she has just become aware that her daughter has been using pot and has a boyfriend who uses it with her. The woman, in a loud and accusatory voice, says, “What do you think you will be like when you are forty?” The pretty, dark-haired girl looks through large, brown, tear-filled eyes. She responds in a cold, measured, and deliberate tone, “I don’t know, but I sure hope I’m not like you.”

1972. Three years later. The same woman, in the same kitchen. The telephone rings. It’s her daughter. She’s twenty now. She’s calling just to talk, to share her impressions after both of them, each in her own place, have viewed a two-hour television show about alcoholism starring Dick Van Dyke. It’s a long talk, and toward the end the daughter says, “You know, people are starting to tell me I’m a lot like you, and that really makes me feel good.” And then—just before “goodbye”—“Isn’t it great that we don’t have to hurt each other anymore?”

1981. Nine years later. A postcard from Paris from her. On the front a fragile bunch of wildflowers and a verse:

Je crois

à la beauté de la vie,

à la dignité, à la bonté

je crois à l’honnêteté,

et je crois

en vous,

—MICHELE EMESSE

And, translated in hand-printed simplicity across the border of the card,

I believe in the beauty of life,

in its dignity and goodness;

I believe in honesty, and I believe in you.

On the back, “I hope this card gets to you when you are either on top of the world or when most in need of its sentiments. If you put it where you can see it when you’re down… I love you and want you to know that you are in my thoughts a lot. Much of what you are is an inspiration to me, and I am grateful to God for such a mother as you. What sentimentality! And it isn’t even Mother’s Day. Please excuse my mush, but, sigh, it’s all true!”

It is my hope that what I have tried to present here and in what follows will bring new life to the relationships of the people who seek it through the program. This is a short chronicle of reconciliation. It is the foundation of my own enthusiasm for the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.