sadielady

I went to my first Al-Anon meeting today. I'd meant to go yesterday and I guess I flaked out. But today I was ready.

I shared at the end when they welcome the newcomers to share. It was an overwhelmingly welcoming place and I let out my story, crying, open. After the meeting several lovely people came up and encouraged me to keep coming, a couple even said that what I said inspired them and motivated them. That blew me AWAY.

It was wonderful to hear all the shares and see all the ways people experience growing and getting healthier, and working through their struggles with their "qualifiers" (who knew???) and to be in such a nice safe space. It felt like being here with all of you, just in person near my home!!!

A strange thing happened, there's a man in the meeting I once went on an online date with a few years back. Very nice guy, but we didn't go out a 2nd time. It took me a while to figure out who he was and I'm almost sure. He seemed to possibly recognize me but we didn't say anything to each other. Does the anonymity prevent me from saying hello and acknowledging it? I don't want to pursue a date or anything, I just don't know where the line of anonymity ends so I'm not rude about it?

I loved being in that meeting. I sure needed to be there. I'm going to try others near me too.

For any of you on the fence about going, GO.

wolfpackfan45

Glad it went so well. Yes, you can say hello and mention it. We have a lot of people in my group who mention where they work, etc. They all know I'm a teacher and have asked me where. We just don't use each other's last names and we never talk about the private stuff said at meetings outside the room to others. Never, ever. Like, if I saw one of the group while I was with some friends, I'd never introduce that person as someone I'd met in AlAnon. Hope this clears up the anonymity thing.

LexieCat

Glad you had a great meeting!

Yeah, it would be pretty weird if you saw someone you knew at a meeting and pretended you didn't see each other! wolfpackfan explained it pretty well. What's heard and who's seen at meetings stays at the meeting, but we aren't strangers to each other. Or mostly not, lol--I recently had to have some tickets left at the box office for a convent, for one of my AA friends. I've known her almost five years, and I had to call her to ask her last name so I could reserve the tickets for her!

Wavy

The anonymity thing is so that people outside the program don't know you are in the program unless you tell them, not really within the program, the idea being that everything that goes on within the rooms of AlAnon stays there. So it would be fine to acknowledge the man in the meetings since you both know already know each other and you are both in the program - no one's anonymity is being broken there! What it wouldn't be ok to do would be to say to one of your non-AlAnon friends "oh remember that guy I went out with once - he was at my AlAnon meeting last night".

Your anonymity is yours to keep/give away as you like, and everyone else's is their's, you must never make the decision to disclose someone's attendance at AlAnon for them. But if you want to reveal your surname or where you work or anything like that you are free to - many of us at my home group are facebook friends, which necessitates knowing people's surnames. But is someone asked us how we knew "such and such" we would never say AlAnon. A common line is 'through a friend of a friend" or one member says "I know them through Alan" (her shorthand for AlAnon )

ETA: forgot to say, glad you had such a great first meeting!

LexieCat

Yup, I always say I know someone "through mutual friends".