Hello, I'm _____________, and I'm grateful to be your Al-Anon chair today.
This is the opening for the regular Sunday meeting at A Serenity Place.
May we all please observe a moment of silence to reflect on why we are here.
Would all those who care to please join me in opening with the Serenity Prayer:
God, grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
and wisdom to know the difference.
We welcome you to A Serenity Place online Al-Anon meeting and hope you will
find in this fellowship the help and friendship we have been privileged to
enjoy.
We who live, or have lived, with the problem of alcoholism understand as
perhaps few others can. We, too, were lonely and frustrated, but in Al-Anon
we discover that no situation is really hopeless, and that it is possible
for us to find contentment, and even happiness, whether the alcoholic is
still drinking or not.
We urge you to try our program. It has helped many of us find solutions that
lead to serenity. So much depends on our own attitudes, and as we learn to
place our problem in its true perspective, we find it loses its power to
dominate our thoughts and our lives.
The family situation is bound to improve as we apply the Al-Anon ideas.
Without such spiritual help, living with an alcoholic is too much for most
of us. Our thinking becomes distorted by trying to force solutions, and we
become irritable and unreasonable without knowing it.
The Al-Anon program is based on the suggested Twelve Steps of Alcoholics
Anonymous, which we try, little by little, one day at a time, to apply to
our lives along with our slogans and the Serenity Prayer. The loving
interchange of help among members and daily reading of Al-Anon literature
thus make us ready to receive the priceless gift of serenity.
Al-Anon is an anonymous fellowship. Everything that is said here, in the
group meeting and member-to-member, must be held in confidence. Only in this
way can we feel free to say what is on our minds and in our hearts, for this
is how we help one another in Al-Anon.
Suggested Preamble To The Twelve Steps
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The Al-Anon Family Groups are a fellowship of relatives and friends of
alcoholics who share their experience, strength and hope in order to solve
their common problems.
We believe alcoholism is a family illness and that changed attitudes can aid
in recovery.
Al-Anon is not allied with any sect, denomination, political entity,
organization or institution. It does not engage in any controversy, neither
endorses nor opposes any cause. There are no dues for membership. Al-Anon is
self-supporting through its own voluntary contributions.
Al-Anon has but one purpose: to help families of alcoholics. We do this by
practicing the Twelve Steps, by welcoming and giving comfort to families of
alcoholics, and by giving understanding and encouragement to the alcoholic.
Revised: 5/15/96
Posted: 7/22/96 2019