Right after the holidays, a newcomer in obvious distress shared her painful story. Her sober adult daughter had blown up in a dry-drunk rage over a seemingly minor incident, then cut off contact. At Christmas, no less.

In alcoholic families, this holiday tale is as old as Saint Nick himself. Ruined holidays are pretty much the default setting with this disease. So we understood. We listened sympathetically and told her to keep coming back.

And she kept coming back. And she told her story again. And again. And again. Soon she started popping up in another meeting I regularly attend, and told the sad tale there too. Once in awhile I’d see her at a third meeting. With very little variation, she shared that story in every meeting for the next eighteen months or so.

To summarize: She told the exact same story, at least twice a week, for over a year and a half. That is well over one hundred repetitions. That’s about ninety-seven more times than I have enough program to patiently listen to.

We all get stuck at certain points in recovery. I do, anyway, and it was a huge relief to me to learn that this happens to other people too. And when something genuinely crappy happens and the soul is deeply wounded, we need to talk about it over and over and over, to start coming to grips with it.

Being cut off by someone you love qualifies as Genuinely Crappy. It hurts, and the only way to survive that hurt is to let some of it out just before it kills you, and then keep letting it out as it builds back up.

I’ve been there. I get it. Sometimes people just need to talk about the same thing more than once. So I listened with compassion the first maybe eight or ten times.

Stuck on repeat

By this time I could recite the story with her, word for word. Then my eyes started to roll just a little bit, involuntarily, of course. Lord, please remove this defect from me! (The great virtue of Zoom meetings: camera off. Not just for attending meetings on days I don’t feel like getting dressed!)

It didn’t help that she happened to be one of those sandpaper people–the ones that God puts in my life to polish the rough spots in my character: impatience, judginess, and all the rest. (Usually their character defects are the same as mine, which is why I can’t stand them. But that’s another post.)

A few weeks in, a program friend who knew I saw this dear lady at multiple meetings asked afterwards, “Does she ever share about anything else?”

No. No, she doesn’t. And on one level, that’s okay. If there’s anywhere it’s safe to keep talking about the same thing over and over as long as you need to, it’s an Al-Anon meeting. That safety is sacred, and no one violated it. Everyone listened graciously, except for me when my camera was off, and no one told her to get over it already. The acceptance in these rooms brings so much healing.

But on another level, it was sad to see her circling the same issue week after week, month after month, and staying stuck.

Meetings aren’t enough

Obviously she was coming to meetings to get some relief. That’s a vital function of meetings. For a lot of us, it’s lifesaving. But it’s only one function of meetings, and by itself, it’s not enough.

A program friend compared listening at meetings to watching a cooking show: “I might learn a lot of useful information by watching and listening, but nothing is really going to change for me until I start actually applying what I learn to my own life.”

There’s the Cooking Channel Illusion again! I can watch all day, and accumulate lots of interesting facts, and even start to sound like I know what I’m talking about. But all that watching won’t produce a single meal. I’ve gotta get in the kitchen and cook.

So how can something that brings so much relief at first actually hold us back from making progress?

At first it was great, but…

Ever really crave something, like maybe cookies, and experience absolute bliss with the first bite? That first cookie is nirvana. The second cookie is amazing, too. The third one is still pretty good. But by the time I get to the bottom of the bag, I’m eating without even tasting them.

Sharing our Big Crisis Story follows the law of diminishing returns, too. Especially if we’ve been stuffing those feelings, the first time we let them out brings a flood of relief. The second and third and fourth telling help, too. In fact, just getting the story out there can be really helpful for a long time, if we’ve been holding it in awhile.

I did this at my first several meetings, and I bet you’ve seen it happen too. The Story comes out again every week, week after week, in varying degrees of detail, as we process it out loud in a safe place for maybe the first time ever. That rush of relief is powerful, even lifesaving. We feel so much better and think, Wow, these meetings really help. I’ve found the solution.

But soon the law of diminishing returns kicks in. We keep telling The Story, but as we air it out, over time, the rush fades. The airing alleviates our pain less and less. We start to realize that while we feel a little less isolated and crazy, not much else has changed. We’re still on the roller coaster, still reacting to the alcoholic situation in sick ways.

This is often when newcomers stop coming back. They felt better for awhile, but as that initial relief wears off, they start to wonder if there’s anything more. Getting the feelings out there, while a critical first step, is not the whole answer.

And that’s a tragedy, because we do have the whole answer to share with them. That answer is the Steps.

The Steps = The program

You’ve probably heard the saying: Go to meetings to feel better; work the Steps to get better.

If someone arrives at the hospital with a broken leg, the obvious right thing is to relieve their pain. A good doctor prescribes pain medication. But a doctor who only gave painkillers, and sent the patient home with the leg untreated, would be guilty of malpractice. Any sane and compassionate doctor would also set the broken bone. Pain meds alone won’t heal the injury.

It’s only right that when anyone, anywhere, reaches out for help, the hand of Al-Anon should provide comfort. That comfort saves lives. But to stop there is to stop far short of recovery. Just sharing at meetings isn’t enough. People need to be shown the tools that will actually help them get well, and those tools are the Steps.

The Steps are the program. If we are not introducing newcomers to the Steps as soon as possible, we are not giving them anything that can actually make a difference in their lives, no matter how much compassion we show them.

Spectators vs. Participants

I’m not saying that everyone should start working the Steps by their second meeting. Recovery is an individual journey, and one of the beautiful things about this program is that there’s as many ways to work it as there are members. There are no musts in Al-Anon. We do what we’re ready to do, when we’re ready to do it, at the pace we can handle, and that’s as it should be.

But I encounter people at meetings all the time who have been around for years and have never worked the steps.

You’ve met them too. They’re the ones whose lives haven’t changed all that much.

In From Survival To Recovery, on pages 269-270, we find the lines known as ‘The Promises.’ * What can this program really do for us if we work it? “If we willingly surrender ourselves to the spiritual discipline of the Twelve Steps, our lives will be transformed.”

Something deep inside me woke up the first time I heard that. I want so much more than temporary relief. I want my life to change. And this program teaches me that I can’t do it by trying to change people, places, or things. The only part of my life I can change is myself–my thoughts, my attitudes, and my actions.

How the heck do I do that? Alone, I can’t. I’ll keep repeating the same sick patterns, because that’s all I know. My best thinking got me here. The Steps are the way–the tools that can transform my thinking and my behavior and show me how to put my disease in remission.

Surrendering ourselves to a spiritual program of action might start with attending meetings and sharing, but it’s so much more. It’s learning the Steps, learning to use them as tools, and practicing their principles in all our affairs.

I’m so grateful that my home group gives me all the elements of recovery–an oasis of safety where I can share and get relief, plus the tools I need for lasting change. I want to feel better and get better.

How have you helped introduce someone to the Steps? Share with us in the comments!

Keep coming back!

*‘The Promises’ are not officially recognized by the WSO. That’s okay, because they still work. If you’re interested in the backstory, it’s here.