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Old 07-30-2008, 06:33 AM
  # 9 (permalink)  
GingerM
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Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: Under the Rainbow
Posts: 1,086
With recovery, it is always a case of "the earlier the better". I started seeing therapists when I was in my early 20s. It wasn't until my late 30s that I figured out something pretty drastic needed to change. I found a good therapist, I found this little corner of recovery, and I set about making some significant changes.

Oh how I wished I would have done in my 20s what I did in my 30s. But that was long ago, in a different place in time, pre-internet.

I have exactly one experience with meetings, it was an AA meeting that a friend (at the time) was required to attend by court order. He didn't want to go alone and asked me to go with him. While AA is not AlAnon, I understand the meetings are similar. When everyone went around introducing themselves, I simply stated my name and said I was accompanying my friend. I said nothing else the entire time. No one offered me hugs, no one said a word to me, and I made no effort to say anything to anyone else. But I listened. And I learned a tremendous amount of the mind of an alcoholic by sitting through that one meeting - that was about 15 years ago now, and I still remember the stories very clearly.

It certainly can't hurt you to go listen. The most you have to lose is the time you spent there. If you don't like it, or feel there's no value in it, you don't have to go again. My spiritual beliefs make it difficult for me to attend AlAnon, so I have a personal therapist instead. To each their own.
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