We have a Step 12 opportunity available for any District 19 members who choose to participate. Step 12 reads:
Having had a spiritual awaking as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, Inc. offers these statements:
- Board Vision Statement: All people affected by someone else’s drinking will find help and recovery in every community.
- Board Mission Statement: Anticipate the future and Al-Anon’s place in it and ensure that the necessary resources are available
To this end, if you have an interest bringing a meeting inside to a local prison, please contact me:
Sheri W.
District Representative
(559) 349-8960
rep@southvalleyalanon.org
A few notes about our current outreach to prisons:
- Spanish speaking Group Sponsors are needed for a Spanish meeting.
- Monday night we are currently at Coalinga Pleasant Valley State Prison, Yard “D”.
- Early 2017, we start a 2nd English meeting Yard “C”.
- As of December 2nd 2016, we started Friday night meetings at Corcoran State.
Our presence in the prisons brings experience, strength and hope to those who might otherwise have none:
Al-Anon brings inmate new understanding
I’ve spent 18 years in prison. I’ve been here since I was 20 years old— lots of down time, lots of time to think. It wasn’t until I started to attend Al-Anon that I began to learn how I became the type of person who would break the law, cause irreparable harm to others, and run from responsibility.
Through Al-Anon, I realized that so much of the foundation that created the framework of how I thought and reacted was based on the family disease of alcoholism. Though I never drank or used drugs, I saw my own world through the same lens my mother and sister did—through the effects of my father’s alcoholism.
Al-Anon has taught me to see beyond the disease of alcoholism. It has given me insight into the exact nature of my wrongs. The acceptance our Sponsors have given us, their willingness to share with us, their making us feel welcome, and being non-judgmental, have helped me to say things to others no self-respecting convict would ever confide. And I’m a better man for it.
I’m inspired to want to share the Twelve Steps with my sister (my parents both have passed), to continue to practice detachment, and to find my own Al-Anon group back home. I especially want to thank Al-Anon members who come into this prison, without whom none of this would ever have been possible.
Rafael M., California The Forum, July 2012
Reprinted with permission of The Forum Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, Inc., Virginia Beach, VA
Al-Alnon Declaration
Let It Begin with Me – When anyone, anywhere, reaches out for help, let the hand of Al-Anon and Alateen always be there, and – Let It Begin with Me.
