Many people turn to the 12-Step program Alanon to deal with a family member, spouse, or friend who is an alcoholic.
Step 1 states “We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that are our lives had become unmanageable.” People who aren’t alcoholic might say to themselves, “Well, what does alcohol have to do with me? I’m not alcoholic. My husband is.” But part of being in Alanon is admitting you are powerless over the alcoholic’s drinking or even their behavior sober in recovery. (Source: Southwest Group). You have to focus and just work on yourself and in the process you lose the obsession of what “he” is doing.
Step 2 reads “Came to Believe that a Power Greater Than Ourselves Could Restore Us To Sanity.” For Alanons this means that you don’t continue investigating whether “she” went to work, if “he” hid bottles again, or if “they” aren’t doing what you think they should be doing. Even if you’re right, it makes you crazy always trying to figure out what they’re thinking or why they act the way they do. (Source: Linda Smith).
“Made a Decision to Turn Our Will and Our Lives Over to the Care of God as We Understood Him” is the third step. This means that you start working with a sponsor in Alanon who has been where you’ve been and helps you refocus on yourself instead of other people’s crazy behavior. For instance, Maggie got so crazy in her head over her boyfriend’s behavior that she might as well have been drinking.
“My Alanon sponsor told me that I had to quit investigating what he is doing,” said Maggie. “I didn’t like it but I knew it was true.”
Step 4 states that you “Make a Searching and Fearless Moral Inventory of Ourselves.” This is where you write down a fourth step to go over with someone you trust in Alanon, either your Alanon sponsor or a member of the fellowship. This is where you put down your part in things and ways you acted out on your resentments when it came to dealing with the alcoholic in your life.
Admitted to God, ourselves, and to Another Human Being the Exact Nature of Our Wrongs” is the Fifth Step. This is when you go over the fourth step work with your Alanon sponsor or trusted someone in the program. People list behaviors such as going into rages, storming out, calling the alcoholic names, degrading or insulting them, being melodramatic, and give the alcoholic power to ruin the Alanon’s holidays, for example.
“Before I joined Alanon, I would fly into these rages at my kids,” Nancy, an Alanon member for several years, stated. “My poor kids. If they knocked over a glass of milk I would just lose it. Thank God I’m not like that any more.”
Nancy’s sister is still that way with her own children and though Nancy visits her once a year, she said she is able to detach and not buy into the drama surrounding that life.
“I used to lay awake nights and plot revenge on my ex sister-in-law,” says Linda, also a long-time member of Alanon. “She actually called me the other day and asked for my advice on something. I couldn’t believe it.”
