I agree that if AA works for the alcoholic and keeps them sober and mentally healthy and growing then more power to them! Rah Rah! I am all for mental health in any living creature and a big supporter of AA.
But the OP wasn't posting about that. She was posting about her resentment - and that is a very common boogeyman to come up against at some point if we have loved an alcoholic. (I am sure A's at times resent having to deal with their problems too!)
Defending an A's need to go to AA misses the point.
I think struggling with resentment is a stage in our recovery from codependence. My resentments came and went, it was like I was at their mercy, until I focused on them and found that I could actively let them go.
But it took several months - maybe even years, of experiencing this resentment: having grown up w/ an A father and now having 3 A bros, whom I adore, going down the tubes w/ the drinking, I was very angry that I had to deal with this stuff. How unfair and painful that at odd moments in my (should have been!) free and struggling life I would be overwhelmed with sadness, or bad habits of mind, all related to my childhood and their drinking!
AlAnon definitely helped me with this stuff - but yes sometimes I even resented having to go to AlAnon to get better! Therapy also helped a lot too.
Eventually (and I am 20 years into exploring this stuff) I came to appreciate how what I've had to learn from these experiences has made me a stronger, more compassionate, less judgemental person. But I still can totally relate to that feeling of resenting how huge a problem alcoholism is for me and my family, how infectious its noxious tendrils are, and how much saner and safer my childhood would have been without the A dad!!!
skipper it sounds like you are making good progress. Expressions of negative feelings are not a sign that we are not progressing! I found it most important to reconnect with my true feelings (neg or pos) - I had been so trained in denial and numbing by my upbringing that I had to re-train myself to allow for the big negative feelings - they are just feelings after all - they do not have to dictate how I choose to behave or react or plan my life.
Peace-
B