u/Monastic_Realization

I repeatedly hear the advice of using Al-Anon in AA for those affected by alcoholics in relationships.

I have a sponsee, looking for advice for their partner. So this weekend I called up a friend who I thought was still in Al-Anon, and she described her experience with Al-Anon, where she had been a member for 2 years, but recently left. It was shocking. I was left aghast at what she told me.

This is the 4th person (I only know of 4 people who have attended, including my wife) who have described it as being a very negative experience, in varying degrees, and for various reasons, up to and including highly questionable behavior. "Toxic" was a recurring theme.

Based upon my conversation with my friend, I went over to the Al-Anon subreddit last night and today - and the language and opinions there give me no reason to disbelieve or discredit my friends, whose opinions and outlook on life, I trust.

I actually never realized that Al-Anon uses an almost identical set of 12 steps as AA, and promotes a spiritual solution. I was hard pressed to find much of anything resembling people exercising a spiritual solution in my admittedly superficial perusal of the Al-Anon subreddit

Is this a common opinion of Al-Anon? Do you know if most people have a good experience in Al-Anon and follow a spiritual path to a solution?

I am conflicted in making a recommendation or endorsement to my sponsee, without being able to stand behind it.

We are accustomed to death in AA.

Be it how close we came ourselves, the loss of fellows, and the eternal adage we hear in AA "to drink is to die". The word "death" or "die" shows up repeatedly in the BB & the 12x12.

One of many ominous, and hopeful observations in the BB reads "He should realize that we are engaged upon a life-and-death errand." I note that they don't say life OR death - they say life AND death. Our program(s) include life, and death, for each of us will experience both.

We are no strangers to "regret" either. In fact The Promises list regret near the top of the list (after amazement and happiness), and I personally believe the authors were very deliberate in that, as I believe they were in everything in the book. They understood the undercurrent of regret as part of the human condition.

It is normal then, that we might consider existential matters - they often go hand in hand with the spiritual exploration that occurs in AA. Death is the only certainty in this life, and it's only at that point in time that we see where the balance sheet of our affairs stands.

I would assert that we are already in that process, whether we are aware of it or not. Adding and subtracting, debiting and crediting.

In 2010, a palliative nurse, Bronnie Ware, wrote an anecdotal book describing the most common regrets expressed to her by hundreds of her dying patients.

They were:

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.

3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

In 2018 a study by Cornell University, concurred with these findings, adding that regrets were often "ideal-based" - meaning people regretted not living up to their ideals.

AA, like many doctrines, is incredibly "ideal-based".

Knowing death is inevitable, and regret is prolific in AA, and time and actions are our variables, I hope this might offer a different and useful perspective. I don't believe we are any different to the folks Bronnie Ware wrote about.