What is Al-Anon?

Al-Anon is a group of people who share a common problem; someone they care about is affected by alcoholism or alcohol abuse. Members share their experiences and lessons learned in discussion groups, based on a form of the 12 Steps program originally developed by Alcoholics Anonymous. There are group meeting in nearly every town.

One of the most difficult things I ever did was to go to my first meeting. I was embarrassed and fearful. I was ashamed that I needed help and that I wasn’t able to deal with the problem on my own. I was afraid that I would have to stand up and talk in front of the group, like you sometimes see when AA meetings are portrayed in movies. However, by then the pain of living with my alcoholic marriage was worse than my fear and embarrassment.

That first meeting was at lunchtime, near where I worked. When I got there, the meeting was just starting. There were about a dozen people in the room sitting around a big table. And they were all women. Not a man in the room. Well, except for me. I wanted to turn around and walk out. But I was already there and I figured that walking out would be more embarrassing than staying for the meeting.

I didn’t know what to expect. Was Al-Anon for women only? Maybe men weren’t welcome? Fortunately, one of the ladies did welcome me to the meeting and said to pull up a chair, which I did.

I have since been to hundreds of meetings in a dozen or more different venues. I’ve learned that they tend to follow a fairly standard process, beginning with the reading of an introductory tract, and ending with a fairly non-denominational group prayer.

Each group has its own personality. Some are friendlier towards men than others. Some have dominant personalities that tend to run things while others are more egalitarian. Although the program's literature maintains that they are not a religious fellowship, some of the groups lean pretty heavily that way, bringing in Christian prayers that are not part of the standard Al-Anon program.

After my first meeting I didn’t go to another meeting for several months. I was too angry. Angry with my alcoholic. Angry with my dysfunctional home life. Angry with the Al-Anon group that talked like they understood my problem when I didn’t even understand it myself. Angry with what I saw as a pretty heavy leaning towards religion in an organization that claimed not to be religious. Angry that there weren’t any quick, easy solutions.

Eventually I did return. My anger hadn’t solved my problem. The problem just kept getting worse.

The next time I tried a different group and it was a little less intimidating and a little less religious in its underlying tone. Over time I found myself as a regular. It helped a lot. I learned a number of lessons that helped me to deal with my alcoholic, although most of the lessons required me to deal with my own issues and leave my alcoholic to deal with hers.

Over time I observed three different categories of people at Al-Anon meetings. There were those who had been in the program a long time and came primarily as a way to keep reminding themselves of the lessons they had learned and to assist newcomers. There were those who had recently joined the program and were in the depths of struggling with their alcoholic relationship. And finally there were those that came fairly regularly primarily to vent about their alcoholic and to do just enough of their own work so that they could stand the pain of staying in their alcoholic relationship.

In time I realized that as helpful as Al-Anon was to get me started down a path of dealing with my alcoholic addict relationship, it was not enough. So I went looking further.

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