Get the sponsor first, and start working the Steps. That IS the Al-Anon program, not the meetings. The meetings are the Fellowship, but the Steps are the program. So it's only by working the Steps you will know if the program "works" for you.
At a lot of the AA meetings I go to (and the Al-Anon meetings I used to go to), at the very end we would say, "It works if you work it!" IOW, it is a program of action.