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My first six months in S-Anon were marked with trauma about all the discoveries in my 20 plus years of marriage. I was focused on what I thought I had and on fears about what I might lose. I went to meetings and I felt better when I left than when I came. I bought the literature and tried to read something every day to steady myself. People kept saying; “Try this it will help” and “Keep coming back.” I was in such deep pain and was just trying to function on a very basic level (sleep, eat, and work). God had opened the blinds for me to see reality, but now I had to turn around and look out the window.
My S-Anon group was starting a Step-Study and I toyed with the idea of trying it. I decided to join—thinking to myself,“If I don’t like it, I’ll just quit.”After a few weeks of writing out Steps in our S-Anon Twelve Steps, I began to realize that there was definitely something to this. I actually began to feel better. After a few months, I was completely hooked, but still not without some apprehension. Later that year, my first sponsor reminded me that my one year anniversary was approaching. I was grateful to have found S-Anon but still grieving about the sudden turn my life had taken. I told her that I didn’t care much about trinkets but that she could announce the anniversary. She did, and everyone congratulated me. At the next meeting there was another anniversary and as was our custom we passed around the coin. I saw everyone praying and thinking good recovery thoughts and wishes over the coin. When it came to me, I looked at it and saw “The Serenity Prayer”—something I had said to myself thousands of times in the previous year. I then turned it over and saw; “To thine own self be true.” I got a little misty-eyed. I raised my hand and said “Can I have my coin from last week?” I now carry all of my anniversary coins in my purse at all times. The weight of them is very reassuring.
Reprinted from the Spring/Summer 2010 issue of S-Anews©.