So long, farewell, au revoir, auf wiedersehen

WOW – In a few

short weeks my term as the

Utah Area Delegate will be

over. I’ve enjoyed it im-

mensely and learned more

about Al-Anon and myself

than I thought possible. It

has been very interesting to

serve as part of Panel 57

with others from Maine to

Alaska and many points in

between. It has also been

my pleasure to get to know

others that came before and

others that are following in

the path of leadership at the

WSO. Each Area has unique

issues and interprets the

WSO Service Manual quite

differently. The individual

Area guidelines vary widely,

and it has been interesting to

get a snapshot from several.

Some are posted on the Area

websites, so I expect to use

them as different issues arise

in Utah.

The Fall Assembly

held in September in Logan

with a WSO Trustee from

Florida, Terry F, in attend-

ance was exciting. Elections

always hold a surprise or two

and this year was no excep-

tion. Terry shared her per-

sonal story and as well as a

message from WSO. I par-

ticularly appreciated her

comments on Al-Anon lan-

guage regarding ‘qualifier’

and ‘co-dependent.’ As a

simple guide, if it isn’t in the

indexes of our many CAL

pieces of literature it isn’t

part of Al-Anon language.

One does not need a problem

drinker or addict in their life

to attend Al-Anon meetings.

We are entitled to attend due

to our disease of attraction to

a problem drinker or addict.

I had the personal pleasure

of being her chauffeur on

Friday afternoon from Salt

Lake City International Air-

port, to Maddox for lunch

near Brigham City, on to

Logan and then the return

trip on Sunday afternoon.

What’s next?

Only our personal Higher

Powers know for sure. I’m

willing to serve or enjoy the

labors of others for a while.

During a recent Delegate’s

conference call, we were

reminded of SWAT (Serve

Without A Title) is invalu-

able to the success of the Al-

Anon program. If you want

me to do something specific,

please feel free to ask and

I’ll evaluate if it fits my

talents and skills and

timeframe. I love the princi-

ples of the Al-Anon program

found in our Steps, Tradi-

tions and Concepts and look

forward to their application

in all facets of my life.

DREAM, BELIEVE,

ACHIEVE

WE CAN DO HARD

THINGS

Nancy Williams, nancyo-

dat@yahoo.com, 801-661-

1306 (Text preferred)

Reach out and touch some-

one!

DREAMING BIG

WITH 20/20 VISION

Farewell From Our Delegate

Upcoming Utah Area Events

Resentments about not getting my way in the past

Angers about not getting my way today

Fears about not getting my way in the future

Terri F. Trustee

Farewell from our Delegate 1

Detachment 2

Step Study Methods 3

Let Yourself Break 4

Holiday Boutique 5

AIC Winter Party 6

Spring Assembly Save The Date 7

New Area Panel Results 8

Articles Page

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Utah Area www.utah-alanon.org

A Quarterly Newsletter

Events Utah District Day Time Location Page #

Holiday Boutique 3 Dec 7th 11-3 PM Murray Alano Club 5

Winter Party 1 Dec 14th 1-5 PM Ogden Alano Club 6

Spring Assembly Area March 20-22 Weekend LDS Hospital SLC 7

New Officers Area Beginning Jan 2020 3 year term 8

Comb Speaker ALA/AA Third Sat 8:00 PM Ogden Reg. Hospital

PRASSA AA/ALA March 6-8 Weekend Tucson, AZ 8

8. Not to take their resentments

personally, I can only clean my

side of resentments.

My addict son and frankly everyone

of us in this disease are really good

at creating resentments and blaming

others (this is ego). I came to realize

that I somehow thought that it was

my mission in life to smooth over,

appease, or heal everyone else’s re-

sentment. I am not able to do this

and can only rid myself of my own

resentments. Suddenly this quote

had a lot of meaning

“Forgive those who insult you, at-

tack you, belittle you or take you for

granted. But more than this forgive

yourself for allowing them to hurt

you.”

Detaching has helped allow me to

focus on myself and by doing that

my attitude and well-being have

both improved. I am now able to

allow the alcoholic/addicts in my life

to experience the consequences of

their own actions without feeling

guilty or responsible. By loosening

my grip on others, I’ve allowed

room for miracles to take place in

my own life.

Anonymous

Being involved in someone’s life

who is struggling can often be

wearing and have negative effects

on my own life if I don’t do some-

thing about it. Luckily I have a

great program to help me cope with

the feelings of lacking control in the

situation and the pain their behav-

iors take in my life, often without

them doing any of it intentionally.

Detachment is neither kind nor un-

kind. It does not imply judgment or

condemnation of the person or situ-

ation from which I am detaching- it

is simply a way I can protect my-

self.

Nothing I say or do can cause or

stop someone else’s drinking or

addiction. I’m not responsible for

another person’s disease and I defi-

nitely can’t control their recovery

from it. Detachment allows me to

let go of my obsession with an-

other’s behavior, stop misplaced

guilt, and begin to lead my own life.

My life is becoming happier and

more manageable, and I can begin

to live with dignity. I can still love

the person, even when I dislike

their behavior.

Thanks to the help of my group

after chairing a meeting on the topic

of guilt, and the trouble that I

was having detaching, I realized

some key points or rules rather,

of detachment and can begin to

apply them to my own life,

which is currently getting better

because of these ideas.

Things I’ve Learned:

1. Not to Suffer because of the

actions or reactions of other

people.

2. Not to allow myself to be

used or abused by others in

the interest of another’s re-

covery.

3. Not to do for others what

they can do for themselves.

4. Not to manipulate situations

so others will eat, go to bed,

get up, pay bills, not drink,

or behave as I see fit.

5. Not to cover up for another’s

mistakes or misdeeds.

6. Not to create a crisis.

7. Not to prevent a crisis if it is

in the natural course of

events.

Page 2

Detachment

THE ALANEWS

Next Submission Deadline: Feb 18th. Next Alanews Issue: March 2020

Alanews has gone Electronic;

We are emailing out the newsletter to anyone interested, (send emails subject line:

Alanews Free Subscription, to Darla K: grandmaby@hotmail.com Feel free to

print or forward this newsletter & share with anyone interested. Or find it on our

area website @ http://www.utah-alanon.org/content/alanews

Also, please notify me if you are receiving duplicate copies or would like to be re-

moved from the mailing list.) This is my last Newsletter, Welcome to our new

Alanews Editor Darla K. Thank you, Beverly J.

U T A H ARE A W WW. UTAH-ALA NON. ORG

I have been discussing the steps

with a few friends in the pro-

gram. It gives me a chance to

evaluate the progress I have

made and to sharpen some

tools I might have left idle. We

take about three weeks on each

step, each of us choosing the

step to discuss next. Because

this is not done in an Al-Anon

meeting we draw on the experi-

ence, strength and hope of a

larger variety of friends in re-

covery with the goal of looking

at what each step means to us

personally.

I call it discussion, rather than

study. Perhaps I do not need to

make that distinction. I sug-

gested this format, you may

want to ask, “what do you

mean, why that method, how

do you do that?”

I enjoy reading philosophy, bi-

ography, inspiration and other

genres and I apply different

ideas to my step work. I know I

am not alone: “google” any

phrase regarding Twelve Step

ideas and you will find an in-

box load of variations on the

theme. Recently I typed in ‘god

steps of recovery’ and was sur-

prised what came up.

The point is that we can do our

steps in a wide variety of man-

ners. These are up to us. Then

we bring our understanding of

ourselves to Al-Anon meetings

where we speak to the princi-

ples of Al-Anon as our com-

mon program.

In Al-Anon meetings I can open

any of our CAL sources and find

insight to the Steps of my recov-

ery, and I can look at them in the

light of my studies outside the

meeting, sharing my insights,

my successes and even my mis-

steps.

I cannot say, “In the book by this

author it says we should do this.”

Even when the book

is Alcoholics Anonymous,

or The Holy Bible. As universal

as these may be (and you will

notice the quotes in our own One

Day At A Time using these) they

are not CAL.

For our group purpose we use

what reflects our common solu-

tions to a common problem.

An author I recently stumbled

upon suggested that acceptance

is the belief that [persons, places,

things] are alright just as they

are without my [jumping in, nag-

ging, meddling or interfering].

That sounds so much like my

program talk and I have used it

since in my program talk – be-

cause I am discussing the princi-

ple of acceptance, but I don’t

pull the book out and say, “you

have to read this!”

Each of us need be cognizant of

the impact of our sharing. To

cite a religious conversion in

Step Two, or Church Confirma-

tion in Step Three might be inap-

propriate while being true of the

individual’s experience. Through

the years I have known members

who found a spiritual resonance

in a new faith or in the faith of

their childhood; others have

found light where they had only

known darkness, and in that light

realized it was a place they

would never have expected. I

heard these experiences shared

in our common language of

came to believe or made a deci-

sion; on personal I might have

asked for more insight.

We often tell the unorthodox

‘slogans’ we have used. Some

are cute, or clever and funny,

others bawdy and edging on

crude. We look for the principle

in these, and back that up with

our Al-Anon frame of mind.

Our program is based on the

Twelve Steps originally put forth

in Alcoholics Anonymous, our

slogans and daily reading of Al-

Anon literature as well as loving

interchange between members.

We each have the capability to

find solutions for ourselves, and

in time will want to share those.

Easy does it, but do it.

Ked K.

Page 3

Step Study Methods

U T A H ARE A W WW. UTAH-ALA NON. ORG

This is an email that I got from my sister, this past week. We are close but had a falling out, I was mad when I 1st read it, but then I realized that she was right and she took the time to explain how she works the program. Publishing this is in hopes that I learn how to really work this program and can gain back my sanity once again: How do you take full responsibility for your actions? Let's discuss the first one, accepting personal responsibility – which is tak-ing ownership of your own behavior and the consequences of that behav-ior. Until you accept responsibility for your actions or failures, it'll be very difficult for you to develop self-respect or even have the respect of others. What Does It Mean To Take Respon-sibility For Your Actions? Essentially, this means acknowledging the role you play in your own life – the good bits and the bad bits. Rather than looking around for someone or some-thing else to blame, you must accept that you are in charge of what is going on. Sure, other people and factors have an influence, but you are responsible for your own actions and anything that happens within the boundaries of your control. It means accepting that your own actions may have led you to the situation you’re in now, whether you like it or not. When you make an apology and then counteract it by saying, I acted like that because of this other situation, it Negates the apology, and ultimately shows disrespect for the person you are apologizing to. How do we completely take responsi-bility for the actions we are apologiz-ing for? Well let’s take a look at the action. Wrong action. I told someone that they should do things my way without understanding fully the situation, and kept insisting that my way was cor-rect. Reason I acted badly. My neck hurt and I had it put back in.

Reason my neck was out. It came out years ago probably due to some abuse that I Experienced. Who caused that abuse? My ex-husband Why did I marry an abusive husband? Because he’s the first one to show me love after my father stopped showing me the same attention as he did when I was little, and made me feel like I was worthless. So when it really comes down to it, it was our father‘s fault that I treated you so badly! This is the reason why the apology has been negated. It is no longer your re-sponsibility, you have put the responsi-bility on another person or circumstance in your life! To take full responsibility for your ac-tions we must look at every one of those circumstances and realize that we made a choice that led us to our ultimate wrongdoing in the present. I.E. I chose not to talk to my father, as a small child, about it, But instead I (CHOSE, perhaps subconsciously) to make an assumption on the rea-son, and held a resentment, which caused me to (choose) to marry a man who was abusive to me, which led to the abuse that made my neck go out, I (chose) to go to a class knowing that it could cause my neck to go out, causing an emotional response. And I (chose) To have an emotional reaction to something that was already settled. And I (chose) to say something mean to someone because of it. The fact of the matter is!!! there is choice! and the choice was made by you in every single circumstance that led to the ultimate choice of hurting someone through your wrong actions! The outcome to these choices is that you are not respecting the person you apologize to by making an excuse for your bad behavior! In fact it is ultimately disrespect! And turns the apology into a resentment!

I could not figure out why I felt so angry and resentful About your apology, until I listened to you again yesterday. And I realize that every time you do something that you don’t like or some-thing happens because of an action of yours, you also preface it with: And this is what’s going on and that’s why I did that. You never seem to take full re-sponsibility for your actions, instead there is always some person, place, thing, or circumstance, that is responsi-ble for it! I understand you doing this because I have done this myself. It took me a long time to really truly look at the history of my actions and realize that ultimately it was due to a decision that I made some time in my life that culminated in the said action that hurt somebody. I had to learn how to trace it back, and realize that yes it was my responsibility and my choices in life that put me where I am today! Our self respect and the respect of oth-ers is what we ultimately gain, once we start taking full responsibility for our actions. Our thinking changes, our personality changes, we grow up and feel mature. we feel able to take on life no matter what it throws at us! And ultimately we learn how to respect our self and the people around us in a sincere and full capacity that we have never experienced before! I do love you Beverly you are my sister and you will always be in my life. But the one thing that I do have to stop do-ing is not being honest with you and telling you exactly how I’m feeling. In-stead of making it seem like it’s really no big deal because we both hate con-flict! All that has done, has caused a resentment for many, many years!

You need to let yourself break!

It’s OK to break!

Beverly J, from my Sister working her

program in AZ

Page 4

Let Yourself Break

Page 5 THE ALANEWS

U T A H ARE A W WW. UTAH-ALA NON. ORG Page 6

Page 7 THE ALANEWS

U T A H ARE A W WW. UTAH-ALA NON. ORG Page 8

Congratulations to our newly elected Utah Area Panel 60 officers - 2020-2022

Area Chair: Celestia G. (District 3)

Area Delegate: Heather M (District 8)

Area Alt. Delegate: June T (District 6)

Area Treasurer: Open (Finance Committee Devin, Darla, Celestia)

Area Recording Secretary: Ked K. (District 1)

Area Group Records: Beverly J. (District 1)

AAIS: Rich Y (District 3)

Chair –Guidelines: Patrick M. (Guidelines Committee: Nancy W. Michelle G., Celestia G.,

Kayla S.)

Public Outreach Coordinator: Marium (District 1)

Alateen Coordinator: Adam L (District 3)

Alateen Process Person: Sheri H (District 8)

Alanews Coordinator: Darla (District 3)

Website Coordinator: Lynette Y (District 3)

Archivist: Anna H (District 1, Archives Committee: Michelle G, Charlie)

Technology Coordinator: Charlie H (District 3)

Literature Coordinator: Lori G(District 3)

Forum Coordinator: Kayla O (District 1)

PRAASA 2020 March 6th - 8th, 2020

Tucson, AZ The Pacific Region Alcoholics Anonymous Service Assembly is an annu-

al assembly hosted by one of the 15 areas in the Pacific Region of Alco-

holics Anonymous each year and it therefore moves around the region.

The purpose of PRAASA is to:

Develop greater unity among the members, groups, and areas of the Pacific Region.

Encourage the exchange of ideas and experiences.

Provide an opportunity for members to discuss pertinent aspects of Alcoholics Anonymous.

The Assembly and the PRAASA Committee should always foster the Recovery, Unity and Service legacies of Alcohol-

ics Anonymous.

Hosted by Arizona Area 03 in Tucson, AZ. Come join over 1000 excited AA members / with Al-anon Participation, from all over the Pacific Region and be part of this unforgettable event. The entire weekend is packed with panels, round table discussions, presentations, open mike sharing, speakers, wonderful meals and ongoing fellowship.

Registration and more Information at PRAASA.org

AFG 5056 South 300 West Murray, UT 84107

NON PROFIT ORGANIZATION US POSTAGE PAID SALT LAKE CITY, UT PERMIT NO. 3359

RETURN SERVICE REQUESTED