Just want to share this website - Al-Anon Family Group

hawaiilover · Senior Member

Just want to share this website

Mattie · ~*Service Worker*~

The writer says:

"The point is this: if your partner stopped drinking today, you would still need to do the relationship work to recover your marriage. So why not get to work on it right away and save yourself a mountain of grief?"

I am skeptical of this myself. My experience is that unless the drinking stops, it's hopeless to try to involve him in making any other changes. Mine had trouble simply remembering what had happened the session before. And alcoholism is so big that otherwise it seems to me like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. I would be interested to know what kind of change this therapist would be advocating. The therapists I saw with my AH all said they were knowledgeable about alcoholism, but in practice they were so naive that I believe they set my progress back a few years.

If this therapist is encouraging us to work on ourselves whether or not the A is willing, then I'm all for it, of course.

Debilyn · ~*Service Worker*~

This really should not be on mip. It is also selling a book. In Hawaii defense she didn't know not to post it.

I read through it and it is way over the top on we are responsible to help the A when he or she is ready for rehab etc.

Bolony, we all know their disease is their business not ours. If they want help, they need to find it for themselves, and get themselves there. They are resourceful enough to always find their drugs no matter what!

Also unless they are strong into recovery, couseling is a waste of time in my experience. They cannot work on a relationship until they can take care of themselves.

I don't get this functioning A anyway. If they are still at a point that they are drinking with few problems, which I find impossible, they are indeed destroying their body plus are progressing to deeper levels of disease as they cont. to use.

In my experience there is no such thing as a functional addict who is using, no way.

-- Edited by Debilyn on Thursday 30th of June 2011 06:19:17 AM

-- Edited by Debilyn on Thursday 30th of June 2011 02:47:44 PM

youfoundme · ~*Service Worker*~

I wanted to post a reply on that site and share how alanon has helped me with the person in my life who drinks. There were so many replies there of people not knowing what to do and I didn't see anything about alanon... huh.

hawaiilover · Senior Member

My apologies if I offended you, Family. That was not my intention. Just informational stuff I found interesting. Have a peaceful day and God bless.

Hawaii

Aloha · ~*Service Worker*~

Actually - I don't see anything wrong with posting the link. We post links to plenty other alcoholism related materials here and also discuss literature and other materials that are not CAL (like "Getting Them Sober", for instance). This isn't an official Al-Anon meeting where we should stick only to CAL, unless that was determined somewhere and I didn't see it. If that's the case, my apologizes for the misunderstanding.

In any case, I like that the link opens things up for discussion, however, on the role between couples counseling and alcoholism.

I also went to couples counseling with my exAH. Really all the counseling did for me was help make things even more clear that I needed to get a divorce. I was fortunate in that the woman who did our couples counseling with us was someone who specialized with substance abusers, so she was very clear on what the disease was doing.

The slippery slope with couples counseling and dealing with alcoholism is that the counseling has the potential to remove the focus from where it really should be. Instead of a focus on ourselves and how we can make ourselves better, the focus can tend to return over and over again to focusing on the spouse and prodding at them about their character defects.

Couples counseling really can only be successful if *each* person participating has a real sincere desire to change his- or her-self.

I see it in Al-Anon all the time. The ones who really want to change themselves stick around and grow. The ones who really do not want to be in the rooms tend to not stick around, or if they do, their growth is extremely slow.

Debilyn · ~*Service Worker*~

Aloha it does get confusing I agree. However we are not a place to advertise books to sell.

I too am confused anymore what is acceptable and what is not. If we are Al Anon, traditions tell us not to post anything non cal. Plus the traditions tell us we do not support any other entities.

I know for sure we are not to post anything where something is being sold as if Al Anon supports it.

Plus this guy advocates we are responsible for our A's behavior. Totally against Al Anon.

Like I said Hawaii didn't do anything many of us has done. It is not pointed at her at all. More it is confusing now what we are suppose to follow here at mip.

I just read it again. It even says how "we" can help our A do recover. A's do not recover, there is no cure. Plus we can do NOTHING to help them. We have no control over their disease.

We always share that it does not matter if we know if they are A or not, yet this guy has a "test" we can take. Again their disease is their own,not for us to diagnose or try to control or anything.

It angers me that he is selling snake oil to people who are truly hurting. As my Mother would say, he is full of prunes.

deb

-- Edited by Debilyn on Thursday 30th of June 2011 08:02:12 PM

The material presented here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method to exchange information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal level.