I think it’s easy to feel that there’s not much we can do about much of the harm that we see happening around us.
Situations are often complicated. Sometimes we don’t know everyone involved or have all the information. Maybe the person responsible has no interest in changing their behavior. Maybe the harm is part of something much bigger than anything we could influence.
And sometimes we simply don’t have a clue what to do or how to help. I understand that feeling. I’ve spent plenty of time looking at situations where I could see something wrong but couldn’t imagine anything I might do that would make any kind of real difference.
But I’ve also begun to wonder how often we underestimate what we can accomplish because we’re measuring it against everything we can’t.
In the last few essays, we’ve looked at what we’re trying to accomplish when harm occurs and how responsibility differs depending on our relationship to it. We know that not everyone has the same information, resources, or ability to respond, and that responding isn’t always appropriate or safe.
But between fixing everything and doing nothing, there’s an awful lot of room.
What Counts as Making a Difference?
I think we’re sometimes so focused on what needs to be fixed that we overlook things we can do that might actually help a lot. If the person who caused harm refuses to acknowledge it, that doesn’t mean someone else can’t offer meaningful support. We may not be able to restore what someone lost or prevent the same thing from happening again, but that doesn’t necessarily mean our contribution would be insignificant.
The goals we established earlier in this series give us more than one way to think about what might help. Stopping ongoing harm, restoring choice, offering support, acknowledging what happened, and repairing what we can are related, but they aren’t all the same thing. Sometimes progress toward one goal is possible even when another remains out of reach.
And I think we don’t always recognize the significance of what someone can offer until we’re the ones receiving the acknowledgement and support. I, for one, have learned the impact we can have on others who are hurting in unexpected ways.
Learning What Support Can Actually Do
I grew up with a pretty strong understanding that you handled your own business. Family problems stayed in the family, and you didn’t open up or share your vulnerabilities with people you didn’t know well. Some of that came from growing up with alcoholism in my family, some of it was cultural, and some of it probably suited my naturally introverted personality.
I carried those assumptions with me for a long time. Al-Anon challenged them, although perhaps not in the way you might expect. Certainly if you get anywhere, you learn the uncomfortable art of sharing personal information with virtual strangers. That’s just the beginning. First you have to share your story, then you have to work a program.
In many ways, Al-Anon is about learning to take responsibility for your own life. It may seem obvious that you can’t control another person or their drinking, but we have all tried in any and every way possible. Instead we look at where we do have control. You can examine your own behavior, make your own choices, and work on how you respond to the circumstances of your life. Nobody else can do that work for you. Somewhat simple in concept, extraordinarily challenging to practice.
There’s no one with all the answers and no one to tell you you’re doing it all wrong. It’s not a place where you go to have other people tell you what to do or solve your problems. Yet, it’s where I’ve experienced some of the most meaningful support of my life.
I’ve sat in rooms with people for years, sharing deeply personal experiences, without ever knowing their last names. Some have become close friends and many others are people I know exclusively through those meetings. And sometimes someone I’ve encountered only once has shared something that stayed with me long afterward.
We share our experience, strength, and hope with each other. Hearing what someone else has lived through and strategies for managing challenging circumstances can be enormously helpful. Sometimes another person’s perspective helps me understand something about my own situation that I hadn’t considered.
But there’s something else that is harder to describe. At the risk of sounding melodramatic, there is something magical about the collective experience of belonging to a group that offers unconditional love and support while you’re doing incredibly difficult, deeply personal work.
I was skeptical of that kind of support for a long time. I don’t think I really believed it was possible until I experienced it. I’ve received compassion, acceptance, and care in those rooms that I haven’t always found in places where I might have expected them. Those relative strangers loved me before I learned to love myself. On the hardest days, they offer compassion and remind me that tomorrow I get to make new choices. They encourage me to own those choices, as well as the consequences.
Nobody is making my decisions or doing my work for me. But I’m surrounded by people who genuinely care about me while I do it. They don’t do it because they have to, or because I’ve earned their loyalty, or because of any other obligation. They do it because we all know pain and suffering and the only way to survive and thrive in difficult circumstances is to support each other.
That experience has changed the way I think about what it means to help someone. I’ve thought about it often since sharing my experience with Jerry. Some of the most meaningful responses I’ve received have come from people who simply listened, offered encouragement, or commented on something I’d written. They couldn’t change what happened or make Jerry take responsibility for what he did to me. They can’t give me back the time I lost or give me information I needed a long time ago. Still, they have supported me in many ways big and small. I knew they didn’t have to do any of those things, and their willingness to show up meant the world to me.
What Happens When Our Responses Come Together?
There’s another part of this I think we sometimes overlook. As much as it might feel like we are each making our own choices, our responses to harm don’t happen independently of one another. What one person does can affect how others respond, and the combined result can be very different from what any of us accomplishes alone.
One person might offer encouragement. Another might provide information or practical assistance. Someone else might challenge harmful behavior or help someone access resources. None of them may have solved the problem. But together, their contributions can change what the person affected is able to do, how supported they feel, or what options are available to them.
I’ve experienced that through Al-Anon. It’s not that every individual interaction is extraordinary. It’s the accumulation of people showing up, listening, sharing honestly, and offering compassion over time. The support of the group becomes something none of those individual interactions could provide alone.
Of course, the cumulative effect can work in the other direction. A person might genuinely acknowledge the harm they’ve caused and try to address it, while others continue to dismiss the experience of the person harmed. That person may still be left dealing with damaged relationships or a loss of support.
Or the person responsible may refuse to participate at all, while others provide substantial support and help address some of the consequences. Neither response makes the other unnecessary.
And sometimes several people independently assume that someone else is taking care of things. We may imagine a person has closer friends, family members, or resources available without actually knowing whether that’s true.
That doesn’t mean we’re obligated to get involved. But I think it’s worth recognizing that the absence of a response can also be part of what someone experiences.
Choosing How We Respond
I don’t think responding thoughtfully necessarily means doing more. Sometimes it means listening rather than offering advice. Sometimes it means asking what someone needs before deciding what would help. Sometimes it means sharing information, offering practical assistance, or simply letting someone know they’re not alone.
And sometimes it means recognizing that our involvement would be inappropriate or could create additional harm. I know I still have a strong instinct to keep my own difficulties private and avoid intruding into other people’s lives. I’ve learned a great deal about the value of community support, but that doesn’t mean those earlier habits have disappeared.
Sometimes I have to remind myself that offering support isn’t the same as taking responsibility for someone else’s problems. And asking for support doesn’t mean handing someone else responsibility for mine.
There’s also the fear of making things worse. We may not know enough about what’s happening. We may worry about overstepping, saying the wrong thing, or creating consequences we didn’t intend. Those concerns can be entirely reasonable.
But I’ve wondered whether we always give the possibility of making things worse by doing nothing as much consideration as we give the possibility of making things worse by acting.
I know that when I’ve asked myself those questions and decided to offer support anyway, I’ve rarely regretted it. That doesn’t mean I’ve always gotten it right or accomplished what I’d hoped. But I’ve often found there was something useful I could contribute, even when I wasn’t sure how much difference it would make.
And I think about how much it has meant to me when someone has made that same choice. Sometimes the most meaningful part isn’t even what they said or did. It’s knowing they recognized that I was struggling and chose to show up for me.
I also think we need to be willing to consider whether our responses are accomplishing what we hope they will. Good intentions don’t guarantee helpful outcomes. An action that provides support in one respect may create difficulties in another, particularly when we act without considering what the person affected actually wants or needs.
We’re not always going to know in advance what difference our response will make, and we won’t always get it right. But we can be thoughtful about what we’re trying to accomplish, what we might be able to contribute, and how our choices affect the people around us.
I’ve learned that someone doesn’t have to solve my problems to help me. And I don’t have to solve someone else’s problems to offer something meaningful.
Sometimes that contribution is small and sometimes it’s substantial. Sometimes several people each offer something modest, and together they create support that none could have provided alone.
I don’t think we should measure the value of a response only by whether it fixes the problem. I also don’t think we should assume that because we can’t do everything, there’s nothing worth doing. We may not be able to fully undo the harm or repair the damage, but a thoughtful and compassionate response can often accomplish much more than we realize.