“I had the feeling as I sat in my first Al-Anon meeting that they had been ‘waiting’ for me.”
During our first class at night school a nice woman talked with me and eventually asked if I were married or dating anyone. I told her frankly, “I just ended my last worst relationship.” She laughed and asked, “Did you have a parent who was an alcoholic?” I was speechless, which was rare for me, and finally responded, “How could you know that?”
She asked if I’d like to go with her to an Al-Anon meeting for adult children of alcoholics. Although I couldn’t logically connect my relationship issues with my father’s drinking, especially since he died 15 years before, I still felt curious and said yes.
During the meeting, I read the list of questions from Are You Troubled by Someone’s Drinking? in the newcomers’ packet to see if I qualified to be in the group. I was dumbfounded by answering every question with a “yes.” I had the feeling as I sat in my first Al-Anon meeting that they had been “waiting” for me. It was an odd feeling.
I wasn’t a “joiner” or a fan of “clubs.” But my experience with adult children, and other Al-Anon groups, ended up being not only positive but also a series of revelations.
Linda H.,New York
I’m not a joiner either, well, not for things like this anyway. I still haven’t joined, in fact, I’ve just arrived here at this site. My relationships have been doomed too, as much for the people I choose as anything I do – and my current one, I’ve been struggling to “save” for the last year and a half. I’ve even been successful for the most part, but part of that success was recognizing that I had never processed and was never honest with myself about my mother’s suicide – she’d get drunk every night from my earliest memories until… Read more »