Welcome to the Saturday "Live" or Wednesday night UA-ANON telephone meeting.

Transcription

1 Saturday "Live" or WEDNESDAY NIGHT UA-ANON MEETING FORMAT Welcome to the Saturday "Live" or Wednesday night UA-ANON telephone meeting. My name is and I will be leading the meeting this evening. We open with a moment of silence followed by the Serenity Prayer. Will all those who care to join me, please press *6. Serenity Prayer God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, and Wisdom to know the difference. UA-Anon is a fellowship of relatives and friends of compulsive underearners, who share their experience, strength, and hope in order to solve their common problems, whether or not the underearner seeks help or even recognizes the existence of a problem. The only requirement for UA-Anon membership is that one's life has been adversely affected by someone else's underearning. UA-Anon is not allied with any sect, denomination, political entity, organization, or institution, does not engage in any controversy, neither endorses nor opposes any cause. There are no dues or fees for membership. UA-Anon is self-supporting through its own voluntary contributions. UA-Anon has but one purpose: to help families and friends of underearners. We who live or have lived with the problem of underearners understand as perhaps few others can. We were lonely and frustrated, but in UA-Anon, we discover that no situation is really hopeless, and that it is possible for us to find contentment and even happiness, whether the underearner still underearns or not. Our program has helped many of us find solutions that lead to serenity. So much depends on our own attitudes. As we learn to place our problem in its true perspective, we find that it loses its power to dominate our thoughts and our lives. The family situation is bound to improve as we apply the UA-Anon ideas and read 12-step literature (adapted from Alcoholics Anonymous and Al-Anon) to help us recover. We try, little by little, one day at a time, to apply these principles to our lives. Without such spiritual help,

2 living with an underearner is too much for most of us. Our thinking becomes distorted by trying to force solutions, and we become irritable and unreasonable without knowing it. UA-Anon is an anonymous fellowship. Everything that is said here, in the group meeting and member-to-member, must be held in confidence. Only in this way can we feel free to say what is in our minds and hearts, for this is how we help one another in UA-Anon. Here are a few basic concepts of UA-Anon: - We are powerless over underearners, but we can change ourselves using the program so that we can be content, whether the underearner in our lives is underearning or not. - We cannot treat or fix the underearner, but we do learn to let the underearner take the consequences of his or her behavior. - We call this "detaching." We detach ourselves from the underearner's problems. Eventually, we learn not to react to their underearning, which is the start on the road to our own recovery. - We strive to live one day at a time. We try to forgive ourselves for the mistakes we made yesterday, and we decide to take tomorrow as it comes. We live for now, for today. - In UA-Anon we discover that individuals are not responsible for another person's disease or recovery from it. - We let go of our obsession with another's behavior and begin to lead happier and more manageable lives, lives with dignity and rights; lives guided by a Power greater than ourselves. Are there any newcomers to this meeting? If so, feel free to press *6 to tell us your first name so we can welcome you. IN UA-ANON WE LEARN: - Not to suffer because of the actions or reactions of other people; - Not to allow ourselves to be used or abused by others in the interest of another person's recovery; - Not to do for others what they could do for themselves;

3 - Not to manipulate situations so others will eat, go to bed, get up, make calls, pay bills; - Not to cover up for anyone's mistakes or misdeeds; - Not to create a crisis; - Not to prevent a crisis if it is in the natural course of events. - Detachment is neither kind nor unkind. It does not imply judgment or condemnation of the person or situation from which we are detaching. - It is simply a means that allows us to separate ourselves from the adverse effects that another person's underearning can have upon our lives. - Detachment helps us look at our situations realistically and objectively, thereby making intelligent decisions possible. Would anyone like to volunteer to read The 12 Steps? The Twelve Steps 1. We admitted we were powerless over underearners that our lives had become unmanageable. 2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. 3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. 4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. 5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. 6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. 7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings. 8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. 9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. 10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it. 11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. 12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to others, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

4 Would anyone like to volunteer to read The Twelve Traditions? The Twelve Traditions 1. Our common welfare should come first; personal progress for the greatest number depends upon unity. 2. For our group purpose there is but one authority a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern. 3. The relatives of underearners, when gathered together for mutual aid, may call themselves an UA-Anon Group, provided that, as a group, they have no other affiliation. The only requirement for membership is that there be a problem of underearning in a relative or friend. 4. Each group should be autonomous, except in matters affecting another group or UA- Anon as a whole. 5. Each UA-Anon Group has but one purpose: to help families of underearners. We do this by practicing the Twelve Steps of AA ourselves, by encouraging and understanding our underearning relatives, and by welcoming and giving comfort to families of underearners. 6. Our Groups ought never endorse, finance, or lend our name to any outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property and prestige divert us from our primary spiritual aim. Although a separate entity, we should always cooperate with Alcoholics Anonymous. 7. Every group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions. 8. UA-Anon Twelve Step work should remain forever nonprofessional, but our service center may employ special workers. 9. Our groups, as such, ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve. 10. UA-Anon has no opinion on outside issues; hence our name ought never be drawn into public controversy. 11. Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, films and all media. We need guard with special care the anonymity of all UA-Anon members. 12. Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our Traditions, ever reminding us to place principles above personalities. Now is the time for the Speaker to share. Would someone like to be of service by volunteering to be our speaker for this meeting sharing their experience, strength and hope for minutes? If not, we can read from Al-Anon's 12 Steps and 12 Traditions substituting the word, alcoholic, with underearner. Would someone like to begin reading Step from Al- Anon's Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions?

5 Would someone like to be of service and volunteer to be our timekeeper for this meeting? SPEAKER: 15 minutes READING: 15 minutes Thanks very much for speaking/reading and being of service. Now we open it up for sharing. Sharing is three minutes long. Please acknowledge the timekeeper when you are told you have one minute left. Who would like to share first? :30 HALF TIME BREAK Our 7th tradition states that each group ought to be self-supporting through its own contributions. If you would like to make a contribution to our sister program, UA, the address is: U.A. PO Box 255 Nyack, NY If you cannot contribute at this time, please keep coming back because you are worth more than your money. Are there any announcements for UA-Anon? We now can continue sharing. Second shares are allowed. (OPTIONAL Read JUST FOR TODAY at bottom) :55 That's all the time we have left for sharing. Please feel free to stay after the meeting on the phone line for fellowship. I will now read the promises of UA-Anon.

6 The Promises of UA-Anon - If we willingly surrender ourselves to the spiritual discipline of the Twelve Steps, our lives will be transformed. We will become mature, responsible individuals with a great capacity for joy, fulfillment, and wonder. - Though we may never be perfect, continued spiritual progress will reveal to us our enormous potential. We will discover that we are worthy of love and loving. - We will love others without losing ourselves, and will learn to accept love in return. - Our sight, once clouded and confused, will clear and we will be able to perceive reality and recognize truth. - Courage and fellowship will replace fear. - We will be able to risk failure to develop new, hidden talents. - Our lives, no matter how battered and degraded, will yield hope to share with others. - We will begin to feel and will come to know the vastness of our emotions, but we will not be slaves to them. - Our secrets will no longer bind us in shame. - As we gain the ability to forgive ourselves, our families, and the world, our choices will expand. - With dignity we will stand for ourselves, but not against our fellows. - Serenity and peace will have meaning for us as we allow our lives and the lives of those we love to flow day by day with God's ease, balance, and grace. - No longer terrified, we will discover we are free to delight in life's paradox, mystery, and awe. - We will laugh more. - Fear will be replaced by faith, and gratitude will come naturally as we realize that our Higher Power is doing for us what we cannot do for ourselves.

7 Would anyone like to share with the group any actions you'd like to take this week to help you with your recovery? CLOSING Thanks to all those who've given service in this meeting: the speaker, time keeper, newcomers, all those who've shared and all those who've come to this meeting, whether they've shared or not. In closing, the opinions expressed here were strictly those of the person who gave them. Take what you liked and leave the rest. The things you heard were spoken in confidence and should be treated as confidential. A few special words to those of you who haven't been with us long: Whatever your problems, there are those among us who have had them too. If you try to keep an open mind you will find help. You will come to realize that there is no situation too difficult to be bettered and no unhappiness too great to be lessened. In UA-Anon we learn individuals are not responsible for another person's underearning or recovery from it. We let go of our obsession with another's behavior and begin to lead happier and more manageable lives - lives with dignity and rights; lives guided by a Power greater than ourselves. Living with the affects of someone else's underearning is too devastating for most people to bear without help. Talk to each other, reason things out with someone else, but let there be no gossip or criticism of one another. Instead, let the understanding, love, and peace of the program grow in you one day at a time. If anyone would like a phone number from someone who spoke at this meeting, I will facilitate the exchange of numbers after the meeting. Any questions from those who are new to UA-Anon? Thank you. Will all who care to join me in the Serenity Prayer, please press *6.

8 Just For Today Just for today I will try to live through this day only, and not tackle all my problems at once. I can do something for 12 hours that would appall me if I felt that I had to keep it up for a lifetime. Just for today I will be happy. This assumes to be true what Abraham Lincoln said, that "Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be." Just for today I will adjust myself to what is, and not try to adjust everything to my own desires. I will take my "luck" as it comes, and fit myself to it. Just for today I will try to strengthen my mind. I will study. I will learn something useful. I will not be a mental loafer. I will read something that requires effort, thought and concentration. Just for today I will exercise my soul in three ways: I will do somebody a good turn, and not get found out; if anybody knows of it, it will not count. I will do at least two things I don't want to do - just for the exercise. I will not show anyone that my feelings are hurt; they may be hurt, but today I will not show it. Just for today I will be agreeable. I will look as well as I can, dress becomingly, keep my voice low, be courteous, criticize not one bit. I won't find fault with anything, nor try to improve or regulate anybody but myself. Just for today I will have a program. I may not follow it exactly, but I will have it. I will save myself from two pests: hurry and indecision. Just for today I will have a quiet half-hour all by myself and relax. During this half-hour, sometime, I will try to get a better perspective of my life. Just for today I will be unafraid. Especially I will not be afraid to enjoy what is beautiful and to believe that as I give to the world, so the world will give unto me. --- Family Group Headquarters, Inc.