Sharing our Success Stories
We know that as ACA‘s we sometimes focus on our problems and not on our successes. Some years ago, my home group decided to add to its format the question “Does anyone have a success in program to report this week?” We discovered two remarkable things. First, asking for successes gave people permission to see those small but steady steps in recovery that they might not otherwise articulate. Second, we noticed that after one person shared a success, others who had not planned to share would suddenly say “Oh I have a success too,” and would offer up a success based on having heard someone else speak. There were meetings where almost everyone in the room had a success to share.
So what are some of these successes? I’ll just give a few examples here of things I’ve heard in my meeting. First, a member shared that her adult son was traveling to Europe and she, instead of offering to help pay for his trip allowed him to be an adult without her helpful involvement. She realized that she did not need to be stepping in to his life, particularly in a situation where he had not asked for it. Another member shared that she had been seeing her mother twice a week in a retirement home, but found the visits painful because of her difficult childhood with her mother, and so she decided to cut her visits back to once a week. Then she also spoke kindly to her mother who said “Oh, a whole week is so long to go without seeing you” by simply saying “Yes I know it is. But that’s the best I can do right now.” Another member said she told a therapist she was leaving her practice because she realized that she did not like the therapist and the therapist acted as if she didn’t like the member.
Many of our successes involved giving up fixing and rescuing or being super responsible, and letting others do for themselves what they can do for themselves. Frequently, a success involves setting a boundary. It may also be to devote some time to self-care or actively listening to our inner family. When we ask our inner critical parent to step aside and stop judging us, that’s also a success. Prayer and meditation are program tools and using them actively is a program success.
Finally, I began a “success journal” because I realized if I didn’t write down my successes, I would forget them. I just reviewed it, and sure enough, I had forgotten many of them.