Now. Ain't That Some Shit?

Can we talk about this, please?

What the fuck? These are the home pages of the Alcoholics Anonymous and Al-Anon websites. Notice a difference? Not only is the AA site better designed, more modern and more aesthetically pleasing ... it uses Flash.

The reason I discovered this atrocity, was because this past Saturday in DDP, we watched a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie starring James Garner, Jo Beth Williams and James Woods, as Bill W. "My Name is Bill W." is the story of Bill and Lois Wilson. Bill founded Alcoholics Anonymous after destroying almost everything he had because he was a drunk. Lois, his wife, founded Al-Anon, a group for the friends and families of drunks. I was going to write about the film for some reason, but now I can't remember what I intended to write. I was googling some information on the film and accidentally clicked on the AA link, not the Al-Anon one. And now I'm too distracted by the inequity in the different sites to recall what I wanted to write.

So. What am I going to do about this? I'm sure I can get Erica to redesign (or design for the first time) the Al-Anon site for free, we'd just have to get permission.

Dear Al-Anon,

You do amazing work. People all over the world are happier and saner as a result of going to the rooms. Yours is a great and noble program that deserves to present itself as such. And, Al-Anon. I am one of those people who has been helped. I have grown and learned so much from my meetings and I want to give back. I want to give back by offering to redesign your hideous, amateur website -- free of charge. Our members deserve to have as snazzy an online resource as those bastards who hurt us.

Sure, they're getting better and I am proud of them. But still, those of us who drained our bank accounts and cleaned up poop and vomit, deserve at least as nice a website. (And what I'm offering will be better.) The thing is, I feel that there should be an additional, unspoken step in Al-Anon, right between making a moral inventory of ourselves and admitting to ourselves, god and others all of our misdeeds.

4b. Having completed our moral inventory, we have realized that we are worthy of pretty things.

And, we are worthy of a well-designed website.

Your pal,
Susan

My god. Fucking Wal-Mart is starting to be trendy. And Wal-Mart is the devil.

Haven't we gone through enough? Do we have to suffer being shit on by the addicts' good design skills as well? We've already surrendered our childhoods and sanity. When does the hurting stop and the healing begin?

It Works if You Work It

You all know I've been in Al-Anon for a while.

For over 50 years, Al-Anon ... has been offering hope and help to families and friends of alcoholics (addicts). .... No matter what relationship you have with an alcoholic, whether they are still drinking or not, all who have been affected by someone else’s drinking can find solutions that lead to serenity in the Al-Anon/Alateen fellowship

I'm getting to the point where I'm moving beyond just showing up to meetings and I'm taking a look at the steps and figuring out a game plan for recruiting a sponsor. Here's the list:

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
Check. I am totally aware of this. In Al-Anon, being powerless over alcohol equates to being powerless over other's addictions. I can't control my Mom. Only she can take the steps to get better. I have to remind myself from time to time, but ultimately I know.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Chcek. And I am in constant contact with my Higher Power. I believe in the Universe. I believe that I am my own powerful being who is just working through the Powerful Being Owner's Manual. And, of course there's always SB.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God.
I'm working on it. But, I get sucked in for other people. For myself I can, to an extent, let go and let god. I'm not perfect, but the message is in my head and when I start heading toward the "dark place" I start the mantra. "Let go, let god. Grant me the serenity ...," and I can usually pull myself back. It's when others are being hurt that I want to get involved. Like I wish I could teach Amy all the things I've learned over the years through therapy and research, but I can't. And that's where it's hard for me.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
Well. You can imagine how exciting this enterprise might be. It's apparently so intense that a workbook was created to help out. In this step, "fearless" is specified. Do you think it would be frowned upon if I did this step while sitting in a dark bedroom listening to the Cure? While it was raining? In the middle of the night?

5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
Oh please.

6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
Check and double check. Please, please, please. I want SB to be my Calgon bubble bath of redemption.

7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
Now, I can't quite make out the difference between defects of character and shortcomings. Maybe a defect of character can be described as a shortcoming, but perhaps not all shortcomings are necessarily defects of character. So. Step 7. Check. Wait -- humbly. Ok -- half a check.

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
I think I could do this. I may not remember all of them, but I can give it a shot.

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
Yeah. Once I have the list, I'm sure I could at least do this with some of them. But I would like to know if I'm included in that word "others".

10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
This has always been tough for me. I'm getting better at it and I try to be conscious of myself, but this one will take a while.

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
Sort of. I do pray a lot. But it's not just a, "show me the way," prayer. It's more like an internal loop of the Serenity Prayer which is asking for more than just knowledge of SB's will for me.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
Check. I am having a spiritual awakening. And it has a whole lot to do with these steps and the meetings I've gone to. And I am really trying to practice these principles in all my affairs. As for carrying the message to others ... you're reading it, aren't you?