Sunday Morning Meeting scheduled in the Al-Anon chat room. Topic: Chapter 3 of the Al-Anon book, "Having had a Spiritual Awakening". Or "Open Topic" related to Al-Anon. Today's reading: "Seeing Events in a New Light"

I grew up in a family affected by alcoholism but I didn't notice that my problems arose from my father's drinking. If asked about alcohol in my family, I would have overlooked it and said that my bad situation came from the bad character of my father. On the rare occasions when my father used to speak with me, he said, "Don't believe that God has created mankind. God is a mere fantasy of mankind. Man has developed from monkeys to human beings." He was a real atheist, and I, of course believed him. He didn't believe that he was able to stop drinking and he didn't believe that communicating and reasoning things out could help anybody.

When I came to Al-Anon I thought I could work the program without believing in God or a Higher Power. Then one day when driving my car narrowly avoiding an accident, I thought, "If I had passed this corner only a split second earlier, I probably would be dead now. Why in heaven's name did I pass it at the right moment? Then during one of those days when I felt totally desperate, I was just lying in bed reciting the Serenity Prayer again and again, just to survive that night. And, heaven knows, I woke up the next morning still alive and a little less desperate. Things had changed a little bit without my intervention and I was able to live one more day.

More and more of those unbelievable "coincidences" happened to me, so that one day I was able to believe that there is a loving God or at least a loving Higher Power who takes care of my life and who sends me my tasks.

Germany

Since my introduction to Al-Anon what "coincidences" have I noticed that have strengthened my awareness of the presence of a Higher Power?

The website link to the group meeting room is http://www.12stepforums.net/chatroom2.html . There are other ways to join the room also. Using mIRC or other chat client, the server we are on is irc.chat4all.org, port 6667 which users will need to add to their IRC server list, and our room name (#alanonchat) to their IRC channels.

Hope you will join us.

Overcome