honeypig

This^^, in spades. No one is going to put you on the spot--Alanon is all about support and acceptance for YOU, the spouse/partner/child/parent/sibling of an A. It's not necessarily about "telling your story" or talking about your qualifier (the alcoholic in your life) AT ALL.

I am one of those who cried through her first meeting. I went home clutching an Alanon book, "How Alanon Works." I laid in bed and read some of it once I got home, and I slept that night, like a blessing, like heaven.

If you call your local Alanon office, you may very well be able to make arrangements for someone to either pick you up and take you to your first meeting or at least to meet you outside so you don't have to go in alone. I volunteered in my local central office and we had a list of people who were willing to help out in this way, so maybe yours does too. I'd think that might ease your social anxiety a little if you could set something like that up.

Once at the meeting, as a newcomer, you'll usually be given a phone/email list of members, so you now have a whole group of people who you can contact for f2f support. If you get to a couple different meetings (which I recommend), you'll get a list at each one. Now all of a sudden you have a whole slew of f2f people! That's worth it's weight in gold in the early days.

And please, do keep reading and posting here at SR. Reading around the F&F section here as much as you can, as well as checking out the "stickies" at the top of the page, will give you a good overview of alcoholism and life w/an alcoholic. As one of our members here likes to say, "Knowledge is power!"

It's so true--when I was in my own little tiny world w/XAH, everything was an n of 1. I had no way to reality check what I was seeing, hearing, feeling, being told. I felt alone, scared, and constantly off balance and confused. Once I got started in SR and Alanon, I began to see the patterns of behavior that A's seem to share. I felt a lot less crazy and alone. Then I began to see the patterns of behavior that I shared w/other spouses/partners/etc. of A's. Now that was truly eye-opening!

To me, the strength of SR is the tremendous diversity of our members. Sometimes folks come in w/blinders on and only ever read/post in their own thread--they are missing the biggest part of the benefits to be gained here. So again, I will urge you to read widely and to post in other people's threads.

Hope to hear more from you in the days to come, luna!