FYS: Storytelling, Identity, and Social Change - Alateen/Al-Anon lyrics

Alateen is a support organization of teenage children of alcoholic parents. Alateen is part of Al-Anon which began in 1951 in California by Anne B. and Louis W. They started this organization to help family and friends recover from their alcoholic parents and express their emotions freely and have a support group behind them to get through their time of struggle. Al-Anon is self- supporting through its own voluntary contributions. Its purpose is to help family and friends of alcoholics that are often traumatized from their experiences get emotional support and understanding. Al-Anon focuses on problems that are common to family members of alcoholics, such as caretaking, not able to differentiate between love and pity, and loyalty to those who are abusive. Al-Anon recognizes that members may have a low self-esteem, but they want to continue to make them feel comfortable sharing their story with other people in order for them to move forward. Al-Anon's method on how they expect to accomplish their goal is by practicing the twelve steps. Which is 1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol- 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 understand him. 4. Madee 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 as him to remove our shortcomings. 8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. Made a direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them all. 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. And Finally 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. Al-Anon created this spiritual tool to help millions of people overcome their disease to alcoholism. When they would gather for meetings they would meet in small groups and express to each other their mistakes in the past dealing with alcoholic parents and go through the steps in order to move forward and solve their common problem. Members would then share with one another their personal lessons they have learned from practicing these steps. The twelve steps are a crucial part to the members process of their recovery. This project accomplishes its goal by helping kids that feel that they are alone when it comes to their issues with their alcoholic parents or friends. Al-Anon wants to rea**ure that there are people everywhere dealing with this issue and that they want to be that source of hope for every child that is going through this. Because without hope there is no light at the end of the tunnel.