Has anyone here found Al-Anon to be helpful?

[frenchie]

Has anyone here found Al-Anon to be helpful? It seems that many of the issues might be the same?

[SeekingHealing]

I wanted to ask the same thing!  My therapist recommended their meetings for me.  I hope to try it out soon.

[karma_gal]

I have had Al-Anon recommended to me as well.  Both of my parents were and are alcoholics, so I get that correlation, but it was mentioned more in terms of personality disorders for me.  Does anyone know what the correlation is?  I have heard that the Al-Anon philosophy of letting the disordered own their problems and we work on coping and owning our own issues was pertinent to those of us with disordered family/significant others, but does anyone know what other elements of the program apply to us?  I remember looking into meetings a few months ago, found one close, got busy and never attended.  But I'm determined to get healthy in 2014 and I wonder if this would be a good resource to check into. 

[bright_future_mama]

I've gone and although most of the talk is about alcoholics specifically, they talk a lot about boundaries.  Healthy boundaries, taking care of yourself, not owning someone else's problems, and not trying to change what you cannot.  It seems you could apply their 12 steps to any dysfunction.  In Al Anon, you go through the same steps as the alcoholic does (12 Step Program).  There is also a spiritual side to it, though it can be any religion.  Basically, you are admitting you are powerless over the other person's disease and that this has made your life unmanageable.  They stress that you can only change the way you react to it, not them.  It's good stuff. 

Twelve Steps

We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.

Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.[/i]

[bright_future_mama]

The parts of the 12 steps I think are kind of hard for me are the ones in the middle about the wrongs and making amends. I'm not really sure why the victim goes through these same steps, although I get doing a moral inventory of yourself and figuring out how you can become a better person.  I get stuck on those because as victims, I feel so wronged by my mother.  I don't feel like any of my "wrongs" could even compare with anything she has done.  And I sure as heck don't know why I would need to list all the people I had harmed.  I always say I'm sorry anyway when I hurt someone's feelings or say something I shouldn't say or react in anger.  I realize they are putting "control" back on the victim and wanting you to start afresh and feel like a clean slate, but this is where I personally got stuck.  I think they basically want you to accept your role in the dysfunction.  I don't know how I feel about that... .Maybe I just didn't get this part.   

All in all I would recommend it.