Chase, run don't walk to the nearest Al-Anon face to face meeting. I strongly suggest to newcomers at our meetings that they go to as many face to face meetings as they can get to for at least the next month if not longer. The Al-Anon program is sort of like medication for a bad infection. If you don't take all of the medication your doctor prescribes for the infection you continue to get sick. The same analagy applies to Al-Anon-if you don't stay with it long enough to learn it all you get sick again. We find ourselves in most cases just as sick or sicker than the alcoholic. That was a hard one for me because I just knew if he stopped drinking and drugging that my life would be wonderful. Unfortunately I learned that his disease had given me the disease of codependency as well. It developed over a long period of time and it will take time for me to learn to get it under control.

We have to get help for ourselves. We can't fix him regardless of what games me play trying to get them to stop drinking. However, once we go to meetings religiously, get a sponsor and work the steps we develop the tools to change our reactions to their actions and that in turn most often results in a change in the alcoholic. If you are concentrating on yourself then your focus is no longer on him. This takes him out of the spotlight and no longer makes it all about him.

As for the alcoholic changing; that will come about when they finally get to the point that they no longer want to live the way they are living. Their drinking doesn't mean they don't love us, they can't-until they love themselves again and that takes time.

You are in the right place and regardless of what happens next you will be ok because you have found a place where people understand exactly how you feel because they have been or are walking in the same shoes as you are.

Some meetings have child care available but those are few and far between. One of the meetings that I attend recently added child care if needed. We have AA and Al-Anon groups meeting at the same time in different rooms. There were people in both meetings that needed this service and one of the "old timer's" offered to provide this service on site as her way of doing service work. Occasionally we have some teen's that come along with their parents to help with the children and we do take up a seperate collection for the babysitters. I would suggest attending the first meeting by yourself and then asking if it is ok with the group if you bring him along. Or if one of the meeting's you have found has a contact number, call that person and tell them of your delima and see what they say about bringing him along. As long as he is well behaved and you can keep him occupied and quiet I don't see that there would be a problem. The main thing is that you and the other members of the meeting need to be able to concentrate on the meeting and not on what your son is doing.

Another possibility is to take someone along with you that can watch your son in another room. That has been done at the meetings I attend also.