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Hello All, hope you have all had a great week!!! I have been wondering how you would go about getting an al-anon meeting going in a town that dont have one.....my town has two different AA meetings, but no Al-Anon....I have been to both of the AA meetings and realize now they both have different people in them....I know most of people in both meetings, and know they all have families....where are the families? Id say there is 15 -20 people in each AA meeting, and If there are just two people to every A that goes to the meetings here thats atleast 30 -40 people with no meeting to attend....Why is there no meetings for us here? There are Al meetings in the next town over but I am thinking if there was a meeting here in our town the families that belong to these A's might be able to get to them and not have to worry about not having a ride to the next town.....
Starting a new meeting is actually pretty easy. You will need to find a location to have it and get it into the local community calenar and anywhere else free to get the word out. I would also contact your local Area liturature person and see about getting some help with some liturature like pamphlets and stuff.
The one thing you will have to remember is that it takes time for a meeting to become successful. You may be there by yourself every week for some time before you get any regular attendance. If you are going to the AA meetings you can put the word out there, but to be honest that doesn't always get you Al-Anon members. At least it hasn't in my small town.
I would probably go ahead and register with the WSO though so you get a service manual and the Forum magazine for your group.
Good luck.
In recovery,
__________________
~Jen~
"When you come to the edge of all you know you must believe in one of two things... there will be earth on which to stand or you will be given wings." ~Unknown
Contact your local literature distribution center and get a copy of the Guidelines "How to Start an Alanon Group", item # G-12. It costs 10 cents, and you'll be paying more than that for shipping (because literature shipping/handling fees are how LDCs fund state info services) - so you might get a few beginner packets and/or books at the same time. You should be able to get a registration form from the LDC as well; if not, it can be downloaded from the wso site - ask you gr at your meeting how to get to the "members" area. There may be 2 registration forms - one for wso and one for your local area.
And good luck! Like Jen said, it takes a while - I like your idea of using the resource of AA, if they're willing to help out. That's how I got to Alanon myself - my husband mentioned a couple of times, "YOU might like to try ALanon!", which was what they were telling him at AA meetings - so I went. And here I still am.
