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What do healthcare professionals say about Al-Anon?

Al-Anon is a vital resource for helping families find ways to become healthy. By attending to their needs and their behaviors, the family is better able to own their responsibility and role in destructive family patterns. Al-Anon Family Groups assist family members to better handle the business of daily living for their own benefit, not just the alcoholic. This improves the individual family member’s send of well-being but often also has a positive impact on the behavior of the alcoholic. David Powell, Ph. D. President, International Center for Health Care Concerns, Inc. East Grandby, CT

Counselors, therapists and others in a range of professions encourage the friends and families of problem drinkers to attend Al-Anon or Alateen meetings, where clients and patients can find understanding and support that complements and reinforces professional treatment. To assist professionals, Al-Anon Family Groups offers a variety of resources.

How will attending Al-Anon or Alateen groups help my patients, clients, consumers, or students? Adult and teenagers attending Al-Anon or Alateen meetings respectively are relieved to find that they are not alone.  Even if uncertain that a relative or friend’s drinking is causing them stress and despair, people attending Al-Anon or Alateen meetings will acquire information about alcoholism or alcohol abuse as an illness and its impact on the non-drinker. They will also learn about the importance of family treatment and recovery whether the alcoholic or problem drinker continues to drink or not.  They will usually be able to identify with and meet others who have had similar experiences and hear first-hand how members are utilizing the Al-Anon/Alateen program for hope, support, and to improve their lives.

Is Al-Anon or Alateen compatible with the professional care and services I offer? Yes. Al-Anon/Alateen is a peer support group. As peers, they exchange their respective experiences. The mutual sharing among members helps members to realize that they have a variety of options that they may not have realized they had before attending Al-Anon or Alateen. Al-Anon members do not give direction or prescribe specific solutions for other members.

Al-Anon is a program of self-discovery and personal growth Al-Anon is a program of self-discovery and personal growth. Recovery is an on-going process and is not limited to whether or not the alcoholic or problem drinker continues to drink,  is visibility present, or actively involved in a member’s life. The effects of someone else’s drinking are deep and may present challenges that continue throughout life.

For educators, social workers, others who work with young people…

When there is evidence of alcoholism in a family, you can see the effects on the other family members, especially young people.  Alateen meetings provide mutual support for young people affected by someone else’s drinking.  In Alateen meetings, teens can hear from other teens how they have used the tools of recovery to help them deal with their family situations.  

Alateen is a part of the Al-Anon Family Groups, and uses the same Twelve Steps for recovery (adapted from the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous).  Alateen is not a program for young people seeking sobriety. Where there is no Alateen meeting available, potential Alateen members are welcome to attend Al-Anon Family Group meetings; all Alateen and Al-Anon members are welcome in Al-Anon meetings.

If you have any questions about Al-Anon or Alateen please ask; we are happy to share what Al-Anon has done in our lives. Take a meeting list provided