CoDepInAZ

Hello all and thank you for this wonderful forum! I'm so happy to have found it.

My question can probably be found by digging through the mountain of information here, but I'm hoping someone can maybe just point me in the right direction. As you can probably recall when you were new, there is so much out there that it can all seem a bit overwhelming.

I am in love with an alcoholic. Next month we celebrate 3 years together. He was sober when I met him and very involved in AA. That was the first year. The last 2 have been a very different story, but now he's back in the program and doing quite well.

I'm starting a program of my own and will be attending Alanon and Coda meetings regularly. I also attend any of the open AA meetings that I can go to with him, which he appreciates greatly and is also teaching me a lot.

There is one thing we both want, have heard exists, but are having a hard time finding. We want a couples meeting. We want a meeting where couples like us (either one is sober and one is an alcoholic, or even where both are alcoholics), where both people can share in a room with others going through it. I can't speak at his AA meetings and I'm sure he wouldn't be permitted to share if he went with me to Alanon, so we want that 3rd all important place to do battle with this horrible disease.

CodeJob

I am sorry I have I not heard or experienced such a format. I hope you locate one.

Adzia

Unfortunately I can't point you in the right direction as I am relatively new as well. But would be great to see someone respond. I am in a relationship with an addict who I love very much and just suffered a relapse. It has been a very hard few weeks and feeling quite alone. I'm curious, how do you find the Al Anon? I'm scared to go alone and don't know much about it. He is a drug addict, is it only for alcoholics?

TimeHeals831

Ohhhhhh how I would LOVE a couples meeting!!!! I haven't heard of one but it sounds like such a great idea!

cynical one

You could call your AlAnon's District office and see if they know of any RCA (Recovering Couples Anonymous) groups or Chapter 9 groups in your area. However, couples groups are hard to find.

Recovery is such an individual, private, and personal thing that many couples cannot be 100% honest in front of the other, especially in early recovery and more so in a mixed group setting. The addict has much guilt and shame of the things they did while "out there", and the partner too has resentments, feelings, and guilt about their own behavior.

For me to be able to recover I had to get 100% honest, it would have been impossible to do that knowing there were still struggling addicts in the room. Not fair to them, not fair to me.

desypete

aa has open meetings over here were both al anon and aa members share the meeting.
the format is
the aa memeber speaks first and then the al anon member speaks next, then the meeting gets thrown open for all to share back wives or husbands
believe me there great meetings and keep many an alcoholic on there toes as they dont want there partner telling people what there really like at home : )

so it works and its good to hear from the other side of the fence

TimeHeals831

Desypete, are those meetings just considered AA? Or is it AA& al-anon? I'm from Jersey and all I know of here is just AA, NA, Al-anon & naranon. Thanks for the info!!

desypete

i dont know if al anon has open meetings ? but the meetings that i we have in my area are aa meetings that are open

normaly if there is a large al anon group in the same area they co ordinate with aa to have a joint meeting in the open meeting, once a month is the norm over here.

so for us here they are aa open meetings were anyone can attend, when they pass the pot around at the end only aa members can put money in in keeping with the trads

so if your thinking of running a joint meeting along side aa it can be done so long as the meeting is open

i honestly dont know if al anon does the same with there meetings and have open meetings ? i should imagine they do and it would be them that host the meetings with aa members or family members coming along to

have you contacted al anon in your area ? give them a call and see what you can find out : )

schnappi99

Theres a combined AA/Alanon meeting around here, I attended one. Lots of husband/wife teams there lol. Generally the format is the similar but the shares can come from either perspective. I found it a mixed bag, one one hand no matter what team you're playing on you can see the other side right there OTOH because of that divided nature the focus is not as close as in dedicated meetings. I wouldn't want to go there instead of my usual alanon meetings but I imagine it would augment either program nicely. I'd go more often but its a bit of a hike and the time is awkward for me.

That said, I would find it difficult to share in front of my wife since our marriage is tangled up in the alcoholism as well. But others may feel differently.. its nice to have the choice.

Carpathia

Hi. I was going to comment one way, but realized I misread part of schnappi's post.

It seems strange there are combined AA/Alanon meetings. I never knew such an animal existed. I'd like to go to one just to see how it works.

schnappi99

Yeah its an odd bird, moreso because kids are welcome- sort of makes it a family outing. The smaller kids generally accumulate into a horde and go out to the playground, occasionally filtering back to check in w/ mom &/or dad. Some older kids stayed some didn't. This aspect is probably one of the major draws of this meeting. (My homegroup alanon is orthodox, kids are there sometimes if there is a breakdown in childcare scheduling but its quite rare).

Of course that means some of the more intense topics are avoided.

But the difference is in the shares too. The speaker in the meeting I attended was a 20-something young guy, introduced by his mother. He shared the evolution of his alcoholism, then his mother shared about her codependency... an unusual format but echoed few times by other couples. Lots of recovery seemed to be happening.. demographics were diverse as well.

Otherwise the standard meeting protocol was followed. OTOH I don't recall if both sets of literature are present.. .probably so, I can't imagine a meeting could be alanon w/o its literature present.