formyfather

I have joined this online community hoping to find my father a way to express himself to others who can relate to him. He has a severe addiction to alcohol and has been sober *as far as I know* since January 12. The family has come together to get him some professional help, and he has started early recovery group therapy sessions at a local recovery centre this past week, and will be attending those three times a week in addition to seeing a doctor and a counselor once a week also. Several members of the family are suggesting that he attend AA meetings as well and he is resisting. I can understand that he is probably overwhelmed with the amount of meetings he needs to attend, and I think it may actually be a little early for him to start AA at this point since he is still in the early recovery program which is why I have turned to this online community as an alternative for now.

How would you recommend that I get my dad started on this support community? Which forum should he participate in to get started? He enjoys chatting on facebook groups so I know he would participate in discussions, and hopefully benefit from it. Thank you for any suggestions you may have about getting him started, or even any input about his recovery treatment so far would be appreciated.

vegibean

Right where you just posted, "Newcomers to Recovery", and he shouldn't be afraid of us. This site is awesome, there are plenty of threads for him to post in, there is even one that is "Men Only", and many more. Take a look around. I encourage you to get him here, tons of support and many people willing to share what helped them get better and stay sober.

Welcome to SR.

LexieCat

It sounds like your dad is in good hands right now. AA is great, and there is no reason to delay it. The sooner the better, as far as I'm concerned.

At this point I would suggest you let him and his treating professionals and others in AA handle HIM. YOU need to handle YOU. It is very natural, but can be very harmful, for family members to take too much responsibility for the alcoholic's recovery. Bad for the family and bad for the alcoholic. Even though you want the best for him, it is very easy to overstep your bounds of support and actually get in the way of his learning to depend on himself, his higher power, and his fellow AA members for help. It's easy to do for him what he can/should be doing for himself.

I suggest that you check out Al-Anon, and our Friends and Family forum here at SR. Living with an alcoholic, and worrying about them, and trying to cope with the results of alcoholism, can make the most stable and well-adjusted of us a little bit nuts. It's best if we focus on our own recovery and let the alcoholic deal with his.

Incidentally, I've been in two marriages to alcoholics, and am now four and a half years sober in AA, myself, so I know what it's like from both sides of the bottle.

Received

My first post was here, on "Newcomers to Recovery". It was my experience that a lot of the members start here to share and encourage the new comer, at least that's how it was for me.

And as vegibean suggested, look around at all the other forums that are available.

I've been here a couple of weeks and couldn't feel more at home.

gall1972

What I always did when I was getting started, is I would sit and read and read and read posts. I would go to random pages and read. I was a lurker for a long time.

This time around I realized that I needed to do more to help myself. So I've been posting a bit more. Some of my post are just me rambling but its a way to get things off my chest.

One thing I have a concern about him using this site; because of coming from a alcoholic household, My father and I would of felt uncomfortable at FIRST knowing that I or my wife / kid etc was at a meeting or lurking on a web site that he/ I might be posting on.....

So you may have to use the honor system here and not spy on him.... just saying.

Staying sober!!

Gall