I was blessed yesterday to share lunch with a friend from church who knows my AA situation. Earlier in the week, she had prayed for a girlfriend of hers via a Catholic mobile app called Ignio. It's sort of a Catholic prayer/scripture community using concepts from foursquare and facebook, very kool. At any rate, her prayer awsked us to pray for this anonymous friend because of her drinking. So I commented that my friend should contact me and we'd talk.
Well at lunch yesterday, my friend paid out for me the situation her friend is in... drinking in the morning before work, drinking at lunch, missing work, losing jobs, passing out at work, a failing marriage, two innocent kids (that are driven to school by their mom every morning). Any of these misadventures sound familiar?
So, I shared a little of my story about her and related to her how AA works. I suggested that she hit a couple Al-Anon meetings for her own benefit, as she is clearly upset by this and worried for her friend. She asked if it would be appropriate for her to talk with her friend, and I thought since they are so close, it would be, if done in a loving, respectful non-acccusatory manner. She also asked if she could bring her friend to an AA meeting and I told her that would be excellent, as long as they went to a closed meeting. I am going to grab a few appropriate AA pamphlets, a meeting schedule and lend her one of my Al-Anon books and pray alot. I offered to take a call from her friend if she wanted to talk. I also offered to hook her up with my wife so they could go to a meeting together if the gal is interested. I explained the importance of boy with boy, girl with girl in AA.
It has been awhile since I've done any 12 Step work like this but it never really leaves you. It took me back to the early days of my own recovery (which is part of the point, of course). I pray that my friend can plant the seed well enough that her friend will reach out to us and we can get er some help. Her situation sounds pretty awful.
3 comments:
Its good when we have that opportunity to share in that vital 12 step work in life and in spirit! :)
I was faced with it recently too - someone in a really bad way - sadly he is "going to fix this on my own" and says he needs to just "get back to drinking normally"... apparently this is the fourth such disaster in as many years but I told him about me, AA, where to find it etc. you can only show the path not walk it for them
Good for you to make those suggestions. I hope that the person takes you up on it. But they have to want it.
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