Who Knew What I Was Involved in Some 40 Plus Years Ago Would Matter Now

Small Win Challenge: Write a piece about a small, everyday victory that ends up meaning more than expected.

In 1978, I started my recovery from growing up in an addicted extended family. I married into an addicted family in 1971. So, my life with my husband went from the effects of having grown up with addiction to becoming addicted.

Originally, in the family program, I learned that when we grow up in an alcoholic family, we marry an alcoholic, become an alcoholic or both. At first my focus was so much on my husband and other family members that I really didn't know much about me.

Over the two years in family recovery, I began to focus more on myself. And at a treatment for families of alcoholics, I was asked to have an assessment. At the end of the assessment, the counselor said that I could feel free to go to Alcoholics Anonymous. He diagnosed me as alcoholic.

I had a really strict sponsor that insisted that I do 90 meetings in 90 days and that I do service.

One of those service positions I signed up for was as an Alano board member, to build an Alano clubhouse.

While on that committee, I fought for a hall that I said young people could have dances, game nights and different gatherings. I was the only one who wanted that, but I may have been the youngest at age 26.

Over the years, I heard very little about the hall being used. Then I was told that they were holding monthly open meetings, then during the pandemic having people more spread out for a meeting made sense. So, the hall was being used.

I hadn't been back there for a meeting in many years. And one day, I had the opportunity to go to a meeting. I drove up to a parking lot full of cars. I entered the building and found no one. Not one person.

There was a building next door for veterans, and I had been told they use part of the parking lot. I didn't know it was the whole lot. So as I was leaving the building I peeked into the hall, and there sat a full house of meeting goers.

I was shocked! I slowly walked in and sat down. I didn't recognize anyone. I was so pleased that something I had fought for was being used. It wasn't for the purpose I thought, but nevertheless it was a needed building.

After the meeting a man came up to me and asked if I remembered him. I told him that he looked familiar. He then said, "Remember the adult children of alcoholics meeting that you and Peggy started, some 40+ years ago? I was one of the first people to join you in that meeting."

I asked if the meeting was still going and he said that yes, it was. The title was now Adult Children of Alcoholics and other dysfunctional families, and it has remained a small group, but that it is still going.

Wow, something that I never expected. Another meeting, Narcotics Anonymous that I helped start was still going in that town where I had my early recovery.

I was asked to help start it as I was carrying diet pills around in my purse for almost a year when I stopped alcohol and drugs. A woman helped me to flush them. She then asked me to help, and we started that meeting that is still active today.

Then, I learned that my efforts in my work when I brought in Gamblers Anonymous to the community to talk with some of the people I was working with had started a meeting and that meeting was still going as well.

Before casino's there were people who had quit drinking, but their bingo and pull-tab habit picked up and soon it became an addiction. That was before casinos. Who knew.

Not until years later did, I find out, that GA started from when I brought GA people to the area. The people I wanted to get help for, never did attend the meetings that came to town back then, but others did attend and started a meeting that continues today.

Small wins are so easy to overlook. They pass quickly, often without recognition, even when they carry more weight than expected.

There is no way I would have ever thought that something I was involved in forty some years ago, would last, and affect so many people over the years.

At first, it was no big deal. I was doing what I believed I needed for my own recovery. Today, seeing for myself who is benefitting from something I was a part of does matter. I didn't do it myself, so how much credit am I given?

No credit. But it felt good attending that meeting and seeing how many people were benefitting from that space. There were probably 40-50 people at the meeting I attended. They probably could have fit in the Alano building, but it would have been crowded. That was a win!

Then remembering a meeting that I have probably been to a handful of times in other places since, was great to hear about. The community I live by just started an adult children of alcoholics and other dysfunctional families meeting a couple of years ago.

Because of that meeting forty plus years ago, I was able to get what I needed and don't feel it necessary to continue to attend other ACOA meetings. That is a win!

Finally, my children were able to attend both alatot and alateen. I would sub for the regular alateen sponsor as needed and the parents, including me took turns running the alatot meeting. Today, this is not available in the community I live in. So, that was a win for me and my children back then!