Larcene and Mary Pearl – Al Anon Speakers – “The Answer is Acceptance”

In some of the hardest times of my life, there was no active alcoholism going on in my home. In regards to these hard times, many of them happened when I had been in the program and God was loving me the way he does now. He wouldn’t let those things happen until I was with people who could help me to get through that. You’re in this place like this place in the world, and you’re surrounded by people who will do anything to help you. So many of us will reject help because we do not like the package that the help comes in, but you have to learn to accept those things. I ask God each day to help me accept life on life’s terms and give me the grace and dignity to get through it.

I never dreamed I would have to use that kind of acceptance with my sister. My sister is sixteen years older than me and she was like a mother to me, someone that I could always count on. Well in 1999 my sister was in the car with me as I was driving, and her kidneys shut down. When they tried to revive her, it threw her heart in a bad rhythm and it just stopped when they were resuscitating her. I remember it so vividly, it looked like she was having a heart attack, because it was forty five years to that day I had watched my dad die of a heart attack. I even thought about it that morning, not knowing what would happen later in the day. Next thing I know I am driving along and she starts struggling. Her kidneys are shutting down and it starts to happen, “Don’t do this Dorothy. Don’t do it,” I said to myself. All of a sudden, God put an angel there in the form of a motorcycle, because I was in front of the biggest mall in the state, the traffic was unbelievable.

The person on the motorcycle stopped to help and made that traffic part like Moses. We walked six blocks away where there was a hospital that had just recently opened. We took my sister over there and they were able to resuscitate her. Now the miracles of medicine sometimes do things that are really amazing and just whatever you need them to do, because for the next twelve years I became my sister’s keeper as she lost her memory. She was down only fifteen minutes of it at the end, this was really hard. She did remember two things, myself and J.D. Thank God my sister knew who I was before she went on her final journey. The acceptance, and the power of God, kept me going through all of this.

Odomtology’s note: Acceptance is one of those themes that comes up time and time again in the recovery process. There are multiple layers and many different areas it can be applied. Whether we have a child, a spouse, or a loved one of any kind effected by alcoholism, the journey to getting better includes acceptance. This is an empowering principle because it allows us to become free and to experience life on life’s terms.

Both the Al-Anon literature and the Alcoholics Anonymous literature place a big importance on being able to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference. One amazing exercise that is very beneficial is to meditate on the Serenity Prayer, word by word, for about fifteen minutes total. You will find a whole new experience with it!