Originally Posted by LifeRecovery

Justbreathe-

I struggled a lot with Al-Anon when I first started (and still do at times). Often it had little to do with the program and more my "confusion" over some of their terminology wording and phrases.

Some of that confusion was part of my dis-ease, some of it was things that after working through them is a "take what you like and leave the rest."

In either case though I really did have to sit with them and talk them through. With other Al-anon members maybe? I brought some of my questions up as topics for meetings. In other instances I am fortunate because my therapist is well versed in the program (both sides) and we would talk them through.

In the case of step one on the side of Al-anon I had a lot of confusion and much of it came down to control. My definition of control was pretty warped and it was just such questioning as you are doing now that helped me to see how warped it was (and how much I was suffering because of it). I am not trying to say you are confused at all, more that I had a lot of sticky points with Al-Anon, and asking those questions and working them through has helped my recovery immensely.

My question for you is this. How do you see step 1 on the AA side of your recovery? How do you see it on the Al-Anon side? Though the same step when I worked them as an addict (eating disorder) vs Al-Anon I got some different answers and it was a good exercise for me to get things figured out.