I'm sorry I misunderstood -- so Al-Anon, do they give you help in how to deal with living with an alcoholic?
Yes.
Most definitely.
But not in the way you may expect.
I've spent a bit of time working with Alaska Natives and Native Americans.
Going to Al-Anon meetings reminds me of that.
I felt the same way when I first came to an Al-Anon meeting like I did the first time I was invited to visit and interview an Alaska Native Elder. I wanted to ask questions and get answers and be done and go home. I found the routines, habits, rituals, to be infuriatingly slow and irritating.
Until I didn't anymore.
The reading of the steps and traditions (which my meetings do at the beginning of every meeting) is a time for me to realize I've left the outside world behind and I am here to focus on me. Kind of like rituals in a church, or at a family dinner, or a holiday.
And then the stories. I was never at an Al-Anon meeting where someone said "When my drunk comes home drunks and pees on the couch, here's how I've learned to deal with that." The wisdom comes out in stories: "My husband came home drunk and peed on the couch last night. In the past, I've always helped him, walked him into the bathroom, washed him off, gotten his jammies on and put him to bed. Last night I didn't. I just left him there. It wasn't really that I thought about letting him suffer the consequences of his actions or anything. I was just tired of dealing with him so I decided to let him deal with himself."
So it can feel slow and frustrating. It did to me. For me, initially, it was a decision to go to a certain number of meetings whether I felt it did anything or not. I lost count and somewhere started getting something out of the meetings. Not in the efficient way I like to do everything. Which, I think, for me, was part of the point.