Al-Anon membership

[kremjk]

...The only requirement for membership is that there be a problem of alcoholism in a relative or friend.
from Tradition 3 Al-Anon Family Groups

I grew up among drinkers... parents, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, cousins, nieces and nephews.
I drank with people who drank like I did. I married an alcoholic who had alcoholic parents and brothers and sisters. I got sober with alcoholics. Almost all of the people I communicate on-line with have alcoholism.

WOW, I am overqualified for Al-Anon membership! ;)

[kremjk]

When I was in a treatment center, during my first attempt at sobriety through the 12 steps, it was suggested by a counselor(who was also an AA member) that I would need Al-Anon in addition to AA.
I could not disagree, but I did not seek out Al-Anon when I got home. I briefly tried the suggestion to attend as many AA meetings as I could to find a Home Group where I could commit to regular attendance.
My wife (at that time) had been upset about my "running off to treatment" and now she expressed complaints about "running off to AA all the time" She was in out patient treatment for alcoholism, due largely to pressure from her mother who was also an AA and a professional counselor.
(but she was still thirsty)
I permitted the wormy feelings I had, about my wife's complaints, to keep me from following through with my decision to try AA. So, I did not get any Al-Anon and I did not get enough AA.
Because I could not (or would not) stick up for myself.
In a few months I was drunk again. And because I am alcoholic, my alcoholism got worse. That is what happens with alcoholism. A large part of my failure to find recovery was due to my *unhealthy dependence* upon my alcoholic wife. *see the post on "Emotional Sobriety"*
Al-Anon held an answer for my dilemma, but I was off for another ride with the four deadly horsemen.

jim k

[samf]

I defintely qualified for Al-Anon!!! (Have relatives, friends, who are alcoholic...qualified for ACoA, too....and CODA, I think.) (Oh, and for Nar-Anon....anyway!)

First Al-Anon meeting I was already scared, as I was also an alcoholic...kind of felt like going to the enemy camp!

First meeting they were all so incredibly angry at the particular meeting I went to, I didn't go back for a long time.

Finally was driven to, due to my reactions to another person's drinking. I was sober, but not handling someone else's drinking in a good way, at ALL.

I went to enough meetings and heard some things that made me want to keep coming, and about two months before I stopped, again, I heard a woman speak who really had what I wanted.

When again I ended up in the same reactive place, due to someone else's drinking, I went back to Al-Anon and this time started taking the steps in Al-Anon.

I can't believe the difference it made and the help and hope there!!

Sam

[kremjk]

When I returned to AA, after what is now my last drunk, I was focused on getting my wife sober and patching up our marriage. I went to meetings everday and I saw myself as "better than" her. I was right and in recovery, I was to be commended. She was wrong and a drunk and needed to be corrected.
One of the meetings I attended was not an AA meeting but was called "Aftercare" and was at the local Human Services Center. The head counselor was my mother-in-law. She and her associate saw a need in many clients for help with family alcoholism. They had recommended Al-Anon but I had not yet found the courage to go there.
They found curriculum that focused on the obsessions and compultions common to family members of alcoholics that was developed by professional therapists. A program call "How To Cope" was offered and, as I attended that, I was able to see how unhealthy my thinking was. My mother-in-law confronted my ideas about "getting her daughter sober" She said," Jim you are the last person in the world she is going to listen to. You can never be her sponsor." I saw the truth in that. I saw that I needed Al-Anon.
When I went to AA meetings and tried to talk about my wife I got stopped and was told that I was there only to deal with my drinking. (that is BS, but that is what I was told) I needed direction and answers to the issues that were most important to me.
The Al-Anon meetings were in the same club house. I went to the meeting room between meetings and snooped through the pamphlet rack. I found "Al-Anon Is For Men" and read it. It shot down one excuse I had for not joining. I read "Double Winners" a pamphlet for AA members who join Al-Anon. POW! another excuse shot down. I read "Al-Anon Is For Adult Children Of Alcoholics" And that was all I needed to decide. I Joined Al-Anon.

jim k

[kremjk]

My first meetings at Al-Anon were about HER. I complained about HER and what she was doing and what she was not doing.
The members there permitted that for a short time, but they were not complaining about their loved ones. They were talking about their own obsessions and compultions and control issues.
Often heard was, "The spouse of the alcoholic is often sicker than the alcoholic." I soon learned that they were not there because of another person, but because of their unhealthy reactions to the other person. And that is where they focused each time they responded to my rantings (or other newbies rantings ) about the alcoholics in our lives. (my wife was one of many alcoholics in my life)
I was shown by example how to look at these issues in the light of MY inventory. What was my part in it? Now I got the same focus at AA and at the Divorce Group I attended and at the aftercare meetings at the "Agency". The focus was always drawn to MY part in the situations.
But at Al-Anon this focus was drawn to my inventory through listening to someone who was sharing about their own story. They did not point at my issues but rather shared how they related to what I was experiencing. Just as in alcoholism, now in co-dependence is was with "someone who knew" what I was going through. So, I paid attention as they shared how they applied the 12 Steps to their lives.

jim k

[blossom]

Thanks Jim,

I needed to read that. I've been getting myself caught up in someone elses actions instead of looking at my reactions and where I can change and where I can grow. As you know i have been thinking about going to Al-anon, but if i'm honest i think i need to go to another 12 step program that deals with being effected by another type of addiction, but i am finding it difficult to find much about it on-line. But i will keep looking, i am just as inept at dealing with someone elses addiction as i am my own. I wrongly thought that because i was an alcoholic, i would know how to be about the situation and while i have an understanding where the addiction comes from, it is whole other kettle of fish knowing how to keep my inventory and behaviour in check, instead of doing the old "well if he didn't do that everything would be alright". But as my sponsor reminded me...What an opportunity to grow...How i love my sponsor at times! LOL!! But seriously i'm sure God would not have given me this, if it wasn't something i needed to learn and grow from and walk forward with to help others.

Love
Blossom

[kremjk]

I was separated from my wife after my last drunk and living in my mother's basement. Al-Anon was helping me to detach from my wife's issues and focus on my own inventory. But it took some time to let go of the ideas in my head about our marriage and getting back together. I had read the Big Book at AA meetings and the waning that "...there should be no undue haste that a couple get back together..." That helped me to keep from making decisions and taking actions toward getting back together, but inside I was restless, irritable and discontented.

I was desperate each week for my Al-Anon meeting. They brought me relief emotionally and mentally. I was also told of the meetings for "Divorced, Separated And Widowed" and soon I added those meetings to my schedule once a week for a couple of months.

There were people at the Divorce group that had a hard time focusing on their part in the break-up of their marriage. I had a hard time at first in sharing the "blame". I felt so guilty that I took on all the blame. The leader of the meeting said that. "Each party gets 50 percent of the responsability."

Others in the group came back to report that they had acted out their anger. One guy said he keyed his wife's headliner in her car. I was so glad that I had AA and Al-Anon as a base of support and direction to help me avoid such urges in me to act out.

jim k

[kremjk]

At divorce group I heard that "If you do not work through the breakup of your marriage you will repeat the mistakes you have made. If you get into another relationship it will likely be with someone that is the same as your ex-spouse or someone that is the exact opposite."

At Aftercare meetings I heard, "Do not make any major decisions during your first year of sobriety. If you are married, stay married. If you are single, stay single. Do not make major purchases, do not change jobs, do not move geographically, etc."

At AA I heard, "Leave the newcomers alone. Do not date them. Men sponsor men. Women sponsor women."

And I heard many stories of members who said that they found that what they thought was love was actually selfish lust. I saw many broken relationships. I saw women get hit on at meetings and many would stop attending. Many got drunk again.

I needed all these lessons to remain a safe member of Al-Anon. I was able to a member among members first and a man among women second. When thoughts and feelings of attraction to the Al-Anon members occurred, I took honest inventory. "Am I ready for a relationship?" "Would she be distracted from developing a program?" "Would we be repeating past mistakes?"
"Would her husband kill me?" "Would I end up drunk, sick and in all kinds of trouble?"

And I stayed close to my AA brothers. The members of my home group. My sponsors. My brother Wayne T said, "We need to learn about brotherly love before we are ready for a wife."

My Al-Anon membership must always be for the purpose of recovery and never could it be a place to meet women. With this attitude and regular prayer I was able to return each week and learn and grow.

jim k

[saved1]

Al-Anon/Alteen Welcome Page.
http://www.al-anon.alateen.org/english.html

[MajestyJo]

Thank you for what you have shared. I always say, "I have one reason to go to AA or NA" I drank rye but seldom touched anything else unless it was white wine (that is when I got into my worst situations), and I only did pills not street drugs, but I have 3-33 reasons to be in Al-Anon.

I was the daughter of an alcoholic father and a mother who used food to deal with her emotions and my father's alcoholic behaviors; I was married to man who to my mind qualified for Sex Anonymous because he ran around with several women during our marriage and left to live with one of them when our son was two months old and we had been married for three years; I was married to husband #2 for 7 years. After being in AA I could see his alcoholic tendancy, especially when I identified my own, and realized that I was as abusive as he was. Not so much physically but certainly mentally and emotionally. I didn't try to put him through walls or choke him, and yet it is a wonder I didn't choke on the words that came out of my mouth. My son is a self-admitted alcoholic/addict who is again in treatment, trying to get help for his own disease.

My thinking was, if you can't beat them join them after coming home to live with and take care of my father at the age of 26 on the instructions of my aunt and my sisters. I became his drinking buddy. He said, "You use to be such a quiet young thing, now you are making up for lost time. I don't know when my drinking took me over the line into my alcoholism, or whether the tendancy was always there. Perhaps that "Awwwwwwwww" feeling when I was 10 years old and stole my first drink should have been a good indicator. Along with the feelings came a lot of guilt because it was communion wine.

Alcohol just became another tool to help me stuff my feelings. When I am so busy with you, fixing you, taking care of your problems, then I don't have to look at my own! Thank God for Al-Anon.