Al-Anon/Alateen - Processes and Benefits

Processes and Benefits

Al-Anon adapted the Twelve Steps from Alcoholics Anonymous replacing 'alcoholics' with 'others' in the last step, Step 12. The Al-Anon and Alateen literature focuses on problems common to family members and friends of alcoholics (e.g., loyalty to those who are abusive, excessive care-taking, inability to differentiate love and pity) rather than the problems of the alcoholic. Meetings are usually small (five to twenty-five in attendance), in larger meetings members often split into smaller groups after the opening readings so that everyone will have a chance to speak.

Meetings may begin with the Suggested Al-Anon/Alateen Welcome (depending on each autonomous group) which starts out:

We welcome you to the __________________ Al-Anon Family Group and hope you will find in this fellowship the help and friendship we have been privileged to enjoy. We who live, or have lived, with the problem of alcoholism understand as perhaps few others can. We, too, were lonely and frustrated, but in Al-Anon we discover that no situation is really hopeless, and that it is possible for us to find contentment, and even happiness, whether the alcoholic is still drinking or not.

Al-Anon acknowledges that members begin with low self-esteem, but teaches that this is largely a side-effect of unrealistically overestimating their personal agency and control. Specifically this is in relation to member's attempts to control another person's drinking behavior and, when they fail, blaming themselves for the other person's behavior. As family members of alcoholics learn to recognize the pathologies in their families, assign the responsibility of those pathologies to a disease, forgive themselves, accept that they were adversely affected by the pathologies, and ultimately learn to accept their family member's shortcomings, they begin to improve.

When an alcoholic's spouse is active in Al-Anon and the alcoholic is active in AA, not only is the alcoholic more likely to be abstinent but marital happiness improves and both the alcoholic and their spouse become better parents. Participation in Al-Anon has also been associated with less personal blame among females who, as a whole, engage in more initial personal blame for the drinking than males.