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| Online Al-Anon Information Service |
Summer 2001
OnLine Al-Anon Information Service
This Newsletter -- not yet named -- is the fourth edition of the OLA-IS Newsletter. OLA => On-Line Al-Anon. IS => Information Service.
Our first order of business is the naming of this communication. We invite you to send your suggestions to newsletter@ola-is.org by the end of September 2001. Your newsletter editors - Lynne K. from Ontario, Canada and Corinne C-R. from Saskatchewan, Canada with the help of the OLA-IS committee will choose the name from your suggestions.
The second order of business is to introduce you to some ideas we have generated for future editions. They are
If anybody would like to submit an article on any of these subjects, send it to newsletter@ola-is.org. Also, if you have a suggestion for a section header, we'd love to hear from you. In each newsletter, we will only be posting the sections for which we have received articles, so please seriously consider writing!
Participation is the key to harmony. (And a good newsletter).
Our new trusted servants are
To Find out more about the OLA-IS please visit http//www.ola-is.org
Groups Currently Represented in the OLA-IS Committee
AFG Chatters
Motions
Agenda Item 4/6/01 - 4 Membership Outreach - Part 1
[Patty] I move that both a second list and a second message board be established for the purpose of service fellowship, group concerns, questions, and comments regarding service, with membership of both the list and the message board being open to any and all interested Al-Anon members. [Andreas H.] I second the motion.
For the issue of responding to Agenda Item 4/6/01 - 4, and with a vote of 11 in favor, 1 opposed and 0 abstaining, the Chair accepts resolution of Agenda Item 4/6/01 - 4 and affirms that a second list (email) and a second message board be established for the purpose of service fellowship, group concerns, questions, and comments regarding service, with membership of both the list and the message board being open to any and all interested Al-Anon members.
Currently discussing disbursement of funds.
I remember the first time I received a call telling me my email wasn't working. We ended up talking a little, both a little shy. Over time we spent more and more time talking to each other and spent a few hours talking many days. Around that time, I went through a period where I was losing my sight temporarily and she was a constant help during that time. She helped me avoid feeling sorry for myself and read things to me so I could still participate in my online meeting and business meeting. I felt like she was holding me together sometimes. She later told me she sometimes felt the same during a rough patch in her life. That always seemed like a wonderful balance.
We were an unlikely match - me with the wild crown of long curls and her with her short totally controllable do. Me in my constant skirts and her in her denims. Her with her family of three and me on my constant search for Mr. Right. She found Al-Anon as a result of her husband's drinking and I ended up in Al-Anon as a result of my family of origin.
On the surface we had nothing in common.
Under the surface we had everything in common.
We were there to help each other during some of the best and some of the worst times in our lives. It has been five amazing years of wonder and tears and growing together. And learning and sharing and opening up. And for many of those months and years we relied entirely on email and phone calls to stay in contact.
She was with me when I met my husband to be - and she knew something was going to happen well before I did. She opened her home to me when I needed somewhere to stay before moving, she taught me how to make paper cranes for my wedding and phoned me regularly when I moved away from my life and my friends.
There are very few friendships that can last thousands of miles without seeing each other regularly. I am ever grateful this is one of them.
Insecurity was killing me. I judged everything that came out of my mouth. How could I learn to trust another human being if I couldn't trust myself to say anything. I started off calling my sponsor once a week. We had a 15 minute phone commitment. The whole day coming up to that phone call was torture. I was terrified. It didn't matter if I got another sponsor, this was not new for me. Even in my face to face meetings, as I waited for my turn to talk, I agonized over what I'd say. I was not getting recovery from this -- I was getting sicker.
Online Al-Anon gave me another option. It allowed me to keep my defect of perfection while working on steps one through five. It allowed me to dig deeper and share more honestly and not get hung up on the words coming out of my mouth and how they sounded.
I finally gathered up my courage and asked if I could write (email) to my sponsor once a week agreeing that if something big was going on, I'd call. It worked because I gave it the same commitment. I had to write every week. Initially I had some structure. I wrote about one positive and one negative thing that had or was happening. And I shared at least one miracle I had experienced. For me, there were two parts to the writing. First, the insight I got from writing the stuff in my head down. And then to actually share it with another human being. It was like doing a mini step five once a week.
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