Viktor Frankl, noted psychiatrist and survivor of a Nazi prison camp, wrote this: “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

For me, the Al-Anon program has been a powerful teacher of this truth. The Twelve Steps, slogans, and success stories over the last 22 years have enabled me to live a life of serenity today.

Often, women ask me to be their “sponsor”; that is, teach them what I’ve learned so that they, too, may find serenity. Some of them do the hard work and reap the reward of a happy life. Others simply don’t make the effort. They want life to be what they want it to be, and they want it to be easy.

You write or draw it: What efforts have you made to live the life you truly want?