S ix of us were servants in the beginners' group. Every week one of us would tell his/her personnal story before and after FGs to suffering newcomers. Suffering indeed, hurt, wounded, demolished, nervous, absent-minded and anxious. After their third or fourth week, they would start smiling, opening their mind and asking questions. Hope at last! Being a servant in a beginners' group has been my most gratifying experience in the FG service structure. Yet we didn't do much else than tell our own story out of a million stories in the Naked City.

One young lady came in one day, about 30 years old, tall and strong, well dressed, not so depressed but with not much of a smile either. She arrived just at the opening of our meeting and left as soon as we'd finished without talking to anyone. After a couple of times, we thought that she didn't need FGs. She'd just come for information. She must have been, or so we thought, a reporter or a student and likely she would not come back.

But she did come back week after week just as the meeting started and left as it closed without talking to anyone. Astonished as we were, we noticed that she arrived five minutes before her fourth meeting and talked somewhat - or tried to - with other newcomers.

She arrived ten minutes before her fifth meeting and talked again with other newcomers. At the coffee-break, she had a quick look on the literature table - books, pamphlets, etc. She dared ask us where to find the texts we read during meetings - suggested welcome, suggested closing, Steps, Traditions, etc. We showed her the book Family Groups where it says how to start a FG, how to chair it - chairperson, secretary, treasurer, etc. She stayed 10 minutes after the meeting to talk with other newcomers. She almost smiled. Yet she looked sceptic and dubitative.

She arrived 10 minutes before her sixth meeting and, to our great surprise, she did talk to us as well as to newcomers. Though smiling, she didn't tell us much about her motives. And as usual we asked no questions.

We used to ask those who were finishing their six weeks with us wether they were willing to tell us how they felt at this particular moment, wether they appreciated their being with us in the beginners' group. The young lady then told us she was a psychologist. "I've learnt a lot more during these six weeks, she said, than during the six years I spent as a University student." And cry she did. "I learned a lot of beautiful things in books, she added, - theories, therapies, schools of psychology, mythologies, etc. - but never did I learn what to do with an alcohol and drug addict. And that man is the father of our two-year old baby." Cry she did. She'd just understood how much work she would have to do on herself. With tears in her eyes, she said: "Thank you all, you've brought me much needed hope."

Now let me tell you about a man who was a sponsor to me for some time. He's no longer in this world but I wish never to forget him. He used to tell me that, while having hurtful conflicts with other FG servants, I should do as though I was a newcomer and go to a beginners' meeting. "Go and see what you looked like when you first came to FGs, he said, that will straighten you up." I know how right he was. Beginners' meetings are still today - as far as I'm concerned - the best place where I can learn to accept people and events for what they are whithout questionning. I do go back to beginners' meetings once in a while not to serve but to listen and learn. That's most often where a Power greater than myself tells me what I need to hear. Thanks to Family Groups.

Quebec, Canada, January 2002

I loved my man for I felt quite secure with him. But did I love him so much?

I enjoyed the motorcycle rides while I was seated behind him. Of course, he was the leader. I made him believe he was the leader. However, I hated his sexual approaches and I couldn't say 'no'.

He departed with his motorcycle, saying: "If you want a motorcylce, honey, you'll have to get one for yourself because I'm going away with mine." He left with another woman who had her own motorcycle.

They're still cycling around here and there and I was left alone and quite resentful for some time. I held many, many grudges. But Time soothes passions and heals all wounds. I got involved in Family Groups and I forgot about the motorcycle. After all, how important was it? I found a much more real security, I found trust in a Power greater than my buddy and me. Many thanks to FGs.

Ideguec, Ontario, Canada, January 2002

Love addiction: a trailer someone hauls everywhere he or she goes. Either it pulls from behind or pushes in the back. Someday one gets tired of the trailer. He or she detaches it and stores in the backyard. Bye bye love. Detachment with love that is.

Motorcycles are expensive machines, powerful, dangerous, noisy, poluting ...and quite superfluous! A luxery of rich countries.

A t age 25 I had schizophrenia and I've been dysfonctionnal most of my life. I have been told I was a system abuser, an irresponsable miser, with no will to make it in any way. Nothing was to be done with this type of sick person. Had I known no other jugement, I would have attempted suicide a long time ago. But I survived without any drugs thanks to Family Groups for Families and Friends of Alcoholics and Drug Addicts. After a couple of years in Family Groups, I became a servant in a beginners' group where I welcomed people I still meet occasionally today either in Family Groups or elsewhere. That is how I came to believe I could be useful and meaningful to other people.

B eing single (yea, that's true!), I happen to have lunch sometines at Salvation Army. One day a woman I had welcomed in the beginners' group years ago recognized me and asked me if she could sit at my table. "Of course", I said.

Now 50 years old or more, she once had two children she had to give up for adoption. She had had a nervous breakdown and could not look after them properly. Now divorced and on welfare, smiling in spite of everything, she said: «It makes me feel good to see you again.» She remembered me more than I could remember her as this happens frequently in a beginners' group.

Her alcoholic and violent husband used to humiliate and degrade her as did her father before. One day her son had been looking for her and had found her in Quebec City. He was about to get maried and wanted her mother to be present. But after a while, he said: «Forget that, I'll find another mother.» She was deeply hurt once more but she came to forgive. There were City elections going on and we laughted at politics. She felt sorry for having to leave and, smiling, she wished I had a good afternoon. «I am happy today, she said, I have talked with someone.»

She was not for very long in Family Groups. When she meets with other mothers with grown up children, it makes her remember that she too was a mother once and that still hurts. I told her, and she was happy to hear it, that she should not be ashamed of her lot. «I still practice FG's principles, she said, one day at a time.»

T hree days later, another mother came to Salvation Army for diner. She too had done her six meetings in the beginner's group long ago and she remembered me. I was quite happy when she came and sat at my table. She too had fallen from a mother's role. Now living alone on welfare she trusted me enough to tell me bits of her story. She remembered mine so well. She feels a great need, as do most of us in Family Groups, to tell her story which is just as stirring.

«My psychiatrist used to tell me, she said, that everyone must go through three great trials at one time or another in his or her life.» What had been the great trials of her life? First she had been rejected by her family of origin in spite of her painful and fruitless attempts to get closer. Then she maried an alcoholic and violent man with whom she had a child that she could not keep up with. She had to give him for adoption. «I would have ended up killing him,» she said.

She knocked around a lot from coast to coast and keeps a very positive memory of the psychiatrist who looked after her in Vancouver. "He told me so nice words", she says. She learned English and the sign language for the deaf. «My third trial, she said, is being alone, but not so alone since I communicate with the deaf. They understand me.»

T o meet again in FGs or elsewhere newcomers I welcomed in the beginners' group long ago, such is my greatest joy today. Some of them only passed by but they taught me so much. How many mentally ill persons in FGs would benefit from telling the whole of their story without fear of jugement? I will write to WSO (GSO?) to suggest a new pamphlet saying: «Family Groups is for the mentally ill or emotionally disturbed» (P-89?).

When having to deal with indispensable and immovable servants after whom the deluge will come, liars and manoeuvers of all kinds (these are caracteristics not only of alcoholism but also of active mental illness), then I remember: they too have had, or will have, to go through three great trials a one time or another. I let go and let my HP as I understand Him or Her today do the job for me. I surrender the whole game, a futile one.

"If you hold yourself dear then don't fetter yourself with evil, for happiness isn't easily gained by one who commits a wrong-doing." - Samyutta Nikaya III, 4

Quebec, Canada, January 2002

E phrem, saint Ephrem, holy Ephrem,

You make me think of that fellow who was drunk in a AA Convention and pretended that he was not an alcoholic! He was overtly drunk in an Alcoholics Anonymous Convention, but he was no alcoholic! Never so!! He was there just to see what he could do to help a buddy of his who had a little drinking problem!

That's how I first came to Family Groups for families and friends of alcoholics and drug addicts. I had been out of hospital 2 or 3 years before and I was still sick. No doubt, everyone could see and hear! I had still a bizarre mental-mentality. I criticized all and everyone, society, the system, bourgeois, capitalists, welfare, communists, taxes, justice, firefighters, police, mailcarriers, feminists, and on and on. Above all, I was sure nobody had noticed anything!! It took me a couple of years to acknowledge I had had psychiatric problems (which evreyone already knew!) and some more years to admit that I trudy was a schizophrenic. There was schizophrenia on both my parents sides and, on my alcoholic father side, there were many alcoholics and depressive persons. I was 50 when I came to understand that.

Our dis-eases are as heavy a burden as our secrets, or so the saying goes. When secrets are removed, one can live in peace and die in peace. Today I have no longuer anything to hide, no more ressentment, no retaliation to come up with. I try to pass the message on to those who still suffer. "Go around the whole world and carry the good News." I try to demystify mental illness which, as a matter of fact, is no mystery and nothing to be ashamed of. A neurological or brain dysfonction that makes people... dysfonctionnal! I have been dysfonctionnal for the whole of my life and I am still so. But for one thing, I have much better comprehension of myself and accept myself more easily. Not always so easy but most often easier than it used to be. I owe many thanks to Family Groups that so greatly contributed to maintain my emotional sanity during all those years, so fragile as it may be.

One day at a time, years go by and, as everything passes by, so shall we. As much goes with the wind. Brotherly yours, fellow Pilgrim!

Gulemo, Quebec, Canada, March 2006.

"No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of usefulness and self-pity will disappear." - Alcoholics Anonymous - "The Big Book" , ch.6: «How It Works!»

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