Originally Posted by
JLynn80 
You asked what it was that bummed me out about the Al-Anon meetings I attended. If I had to say, I suppose it was the folks sharing, a lot of them were stuck on what their qualifier did that week or didn't do and how it affected them. I was looking for more solutions I suppose. Maybe ok to share the bad but what can you do to change that cycle? That's the support I was looking for.
Ah, I wondered if it might be something like that. The focus is NOT supposed to be on the qualifier and what they did/didn't do! Alanon meetings are NOT supposed to be a big bit*ch session; that is not the purpose at all, and I'm so sorry that's what you found. Under those circumstances, I totally understand why you would feel it wasn't for you and why it wasn't helpful. You are so right to feel that the focus should be on the solution rather than the problem.
Here are a few suggestions:
1) Check out the main Alanon site here:
http://www.al-anon.alateen.org/ There is a ton of information here. If you can spend some time really exploring the site, you'll learn a lot about what Alanon is
intended to be and to do. There are some podcasts here:
http://al-anon.alateen.org/Podcasts/FirstSteps/
2) Pick up some Alanon literature. You can find lots of used books at Amazon for very reasonable prices. I'd recommend "How Alanon Works" and "Paths to Recovery" as good starting places. There are a number of "daily reader" type books, featuring a topic for each day, too. This can be really useful in learning how Alanon works. Like you, when I first started going, I wanted answers and advice and was confused about how Alanon was supposed to help me if we never talked about our A's! As I attended meetings and read the books, I started to see it. It did take a little time, though.
3) Start trying some other meetings. Now you have some idea how a healthy meeting will look, so if you find that it's a bunch of "gloom and doom" about how awful things are and what the A did this week, you'll know not to waste your time. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised, not to mention uplifted, when you find a
healthy meeting!
4) The main Alanon site also talks about Alateen, and you can learn more about that and perhaps suggest it to your boys. As I said, it seems they are old enough to do some learning and thinking for themselves. You setting a good example by finding a useful meeting and going regularly in order to help
yourself is going to be important, too.
I hope you follow through on that. For me, Alanon and SR are a powerful combination--each had something to offer that the other didn't, and thus they complemented each other well. I think you may find the same.