What is Al-Anon?
Someone else's drinking can affect your life - be it a relative or friend, male or female.
Someone else's uncontrolled, and uncontrollable, drinking can:
- turn love to hate
- bring you to the depths of despair
- affect you financially
- lead to violent outbursts
- make you doubt your own sanity
- make you think that you are the problem.
Whatever your relationship to the drinker, whatever your story, Al-Anon can help.
Al-Anon Family Groups hold regular meetings where members share their own experience of living with alcoholism. Al-Anon does not offer advice or counselling, but members give each other understanding, strength and hope.
My husband has recently found sobriety. I used to think that everything in my life would be just hunky-dory if he would only give up drinking. So why was I not ecstatic, and beside myself with happiness, when he stopped?
Al-Anon has helped me to be honest and realistic that there is no quick fix programme. It prepared me to understand that sometimes the behaviour that I blamed on the drinking may not stop just because of sobriety. I am so grateful to the programme and the members who honestly shared their experience of sobriety and taught me so much.
Whilst I am very happy that my husband is sober and that many things improve each new day, it can also bring its challenges. I was not responsible for his drinking and I am not responsible for his sobriety. I can accept that I need to live my life and allow him his own path, so my happiness and serenity need not be reliant on whether he drinks or not.