Celebrating 75 Years of Hope and Healing!
This year marks a remarkable milestone—75 years of Al‑Anon Family Groups offering help and hope to those affected by someone else’s drinking.
As we reflect on this legacy, we invite you to share your own message of congratulations. Send us your tribute, memory, or words of appreciation to be featured on our Member Blog.
As always, you can also write about Al‑Anon’s three Legacies. This month features Step Three, Tradition Three, and Concept Three.
Sharings on the Member Blog may be used in future Al‑Anon publications.
New topics are being added each month!
Recovery has been a long, slow, and often challenging process for me. No matter how far I’ve come since I first joined Al-Anon, I know there is still so much more I want to accomplish. That is why I find it so important to take the time to celebrate every baby step I do make, and congratulate myself and my program whenever I use Al-Anon’s spiritual tools to avoid repeating past mistakes. Our meetings are often spent commiserating with each other, and that is important. This is not wallowing in our misery. To me, commiserate means to express empathy, compassion,… Read more »
I came into the program without a sense of who I was and what I could offer to share with the world. Al-Anon taught me I am no longer alone, no longer terminally unique. I was so freely given guidance through the Steps, Traditions, and Concepts of service. I learned that I could create boundaries, show up, be myself and let go of what others thought of me. I’ve come to understand the definition of insanity; a moment of, “Oh, now I see what it looks like for me to do the same thing over and over expecting different results!” Service in… Read more »
Celebrating 75 Years of Hope and Healing As I think about Al-Anon’s 75th anniversary and this fellowship’s history, one word comes to mind: growth. That one word encompasses the many changes I’ve undergone in my own recovery journey, as well as the ones I’ve observed in dear friends in the program as they’ve moved from despair and fear toward joy and confidence. But it also describes our fellowship as a whole as it transformed from a disconnected scattering of wives of alcoholics serving coffee or cake at their husbands’ A.A. meetings to a worldwide support system helping anyone recover… Read more »
75 years of Al-Anon! That’s a lot of recovery. Thank God there have been plenty of meetings and people to share the journey. I used to think that I was a slow learner because I make the same mistakes, utterly convinced that I am right, or maybe knowing I was not but hoping I could get away with it this time! After a long time in Al-Anon, I still have to deal with my own character defects because I have become resigned/welcomed into the club of human beings One character defect decreases, perhaps another appears but I can accept that…… Read more »
Gratitude, a choice that blesses me every day. This is a gift of the Al-anon program; alive and well in my life today.
This “topic of the month” made me do some inventory-deep, “heart-of-the-onion-peel” reflecting about some of my own “family disease-isms” My tendency is to pull back from the word “celebration”. Why is that? What is going on with me pulling back like that? The disease part of me doesn’t like celebrating. Whenever we celebrated a milestone at work, I tended to avoid it. It felt like a waste of time, and I would rather be out there working. Celebrating feels difficult for me. I don’t know if this is good or bad, it just “is”. But it feels like an “ism”… Read more »
I am a 27 year member of Al-Anon. I first came to Al-Anon to stop by husband drinking and discovered it was me who needed to change. I learned with the help from the literature and attending meeting how to navigate family live with an alcoholic. Several years later my husband developed cancer and the program helped me again with dealing with the disease and the emotional aspect I experienced. The daily readers always gave me insight, comfort and new ways to deal with the treatments. My husband has passed 4 years ago and I still attend my meetings and… Read more »
I am so grateful for this beautiful fellowship. It is truly a blessing that mere words cannot describe. It has brought healing and forgiveness into my relationships with those I love. I am proud to share my birth year, 1951, with Al-Anon. And I am so grateful for our 12 Traditions that have ensured our longevity. I am privileged to be an AMIAS and to be a part of introducing recovery to young people that have been affected by this devastating disease. I wish I could have had Alateen when I was growing up in an alcoholic home. This program… Read more »
How can one put into words her appreciation to a program that has saved her life and has brought her to be the best version of herself that she can be? I can try, but it will be very limited in regard of the tribute that should be given to such a program. My gratitude goes first to those two great women Lois W, and Anne B. who have given this a program a life. My gratitude also goes to all the members that have proceeded us and have paved the way for all of us in this great adventure… Read more »
I remember my first Al-Anon meeting – insanely scared, lonely, and angry. I knew my life was unmanageable and felt like a failure at being a wife and mother. I attended meetings trying to be invisible, looking down at my hands in my lap and only speaking to tell the group my name. They shared their experience, strength and hope, saw my potential, and offered me the opportunity to serve as the literature coordinator. I devoured the literature, gained serenity, self-worth, gratitude and detachment. Thank you Al-Anon for enabling me to learn to use all the gifts that I have… Read more »
I am humbled at the thought of Al-Anon celebrating its 75th Anniversary….from humble beginning to world wide fellowship…it is my hope that it continues to florish for another 75 years…to all the members who came before us I applaud you for all of your hard work and dedication
Al-Anon has given my life purpose beyond anything I could have ever imagined. With the use of the program tools specifically the Serenity Prayer and a strong belief in my Higher Power I experience my life’s challenges now with Grace and Hope. My ups and downs are not as extreme as they used to be before coming to Al-Anon. Al-Anon service has given me self confidence and improved communication skills. My gratitude is profound and immense. Happy 75th Anniversary Al-Anon. I would be lost without you!
I was so tired of waiting for the alcoholic to change…if only! I was so focused on their becoming sober as the solution to all my life problems that I never realized my part in all of this chaos. Sure, I didn’t pour the booze down their throat or support any negative thoughts about themselves. But it took some time for me to recognize that this program was for ME; to investigate my actions or reactions, to understand the disease more clearly, to detach with love, and avoid engaging in cyclical arguments, again and again and again. Nothing changes if… Read more »
I have always felt a special connection to Al-Anon’s age; I too was born in May of 1951. As I get closer to my 75th birthday, I reflect back on my fascinating life. I realize what a gift Al-Anon has been to me since I discovered this world-wide fellowship in 2003. I feel thankful to God and Lois Wilson for having my recovery program well in place when I walked into my first meeting. God knows I desperately needed it and continue to need it in my daily life. I will keep coming back as long as I can walk.… Read more »
In a desperate attempt to climb out of my rock bottom, I went to my first Al-Anon meeting. Several weeks later, it became apparent there were changes happening in me. It trickled down to my family and was our start of our healing journey. I’m so grateful for Al-Anon.
Thank you for 75 years of recovery! The durability of Al-Anon fortifies my hope for ongoing recovery in my life and in the lives of people not yet born. Al-Anon is not a fly-by-night self-help fad. It doesn’t promise overnight success or a path to wealth and fame. Al-Anon promises recovery to those who choose to follow the well-worn path to serenity. I love seeing friends in meetings who have been there for decades, like me. I love seeing new faces and encouraging them with the hope of the program. Working through the Steps, Traditions and Concepts with my sponsor… Read more »
I joined in 1986 and continue to come. Being a grandchild of alcoholic granddads I learned to stuff, run, hide and work on changing every one around me. Al-anon has taught me to speak, pray and change me. I’m turning 75 in June and am the contact person for a phone meeting. Grateful
75 years is a hair more than the number of years I have been alive a third of which I have been a member of Al-Anon. At this point in my life in and outside the fellowship, I am more aware than ever before of how big and diverse the world is and that in order to best welcome, attract, and serve those affected by a problem drinker anywhere, I need to think – as in the slogan “think” – about whether my words are comprehensible to someone for whom English may be a second language, for example. Al-Anon being… Read more »
I’ve only been apart of the Al-Anon Family (adult) for 2.5 months, and I am so deeply appreciative of the program. The group is filling a gap in my life that I didn’t know was there, I feel a sense of belonging that I never experienced in my family. Thank you to all the kind people that makes Al-Anon so accessible and welcoming!
When my Dad checked into rehab, my Mom had to go to Al-Anon and us kids to Alateen. I remember walking in the room of Alateen and hearing the kids share and thought, OMG! they feel just like I do – wow. I finally found a place where I feel I belong and could be understood. But Mom didn’t think Al-Anon/Alateen was for us so we only went that one time. However, after I married and realized my life was a mess with my husband’s drinking, I remembered that Alateen meeting and how I felt there. That’s when I found… Read more »