June 11

FAMILY OBLIGATIONS

. . . a spiritual life which does not include. . . family obligations may not be so perfect after all.
—  ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 129

I can be doing great in the program — applying it at meetings, at work, and in service activities — and find that things have gone to pieces at home. I expect my loved ones to understand, but they cannot. I expect them to see and value my progress, but they don’t — unless I show them. Do I neglect their needs and desires for my attention and concern? When I’m around them, am I irritable or boring? Are my "amends" a mumbled "Sorry," or do they take the form of patience and tolerance? Do I preach to them, trying to reform or "fix" them? Have I ever really cleaned house with them? "The spiritual life is not a theory. We have to live it" (Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 83).

Copyrighted © 1990. Reprinted with permission by Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.