Welcome Newcomers!
Feel free to call the District 5 Al-Anon Information Line, at 1 (352) 697-0497, to leave a message, talk to someone, or to have a printed meeting list mailed to you (you can print one yourself from the Find a Meeting page). Al-Anon and Alateen meetings are held daily! Check the Find A Meeting or Alateen Information page to find a meeting near you. We recommend that, as a newcomer, you go to at least six different meetings before deciding if Al-Anon or Alateen is for you. If you attend a meeting that doesn't seem right for you, please try another one. Groups normally meet weekly at the day and time listed and each meeting has a different focus and "personality", but all meetings are based on our Al-Anon Program and Principles.
Keep Coming Back!
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Is Al-Anon or Alateen Right for You?
If you have answered “Yes” to any of these questions, Al-Anon or Alateen may be able to help! |
What's Next? Find a meeting...
What if I am concerned about someone’s drug use, should I attend Al-Anon?
Al-Anon Family Groups have one focus: to help families and friends of alcoholics. The discussion at meetings and our literature support members’ recovery from the effects of someone else’s drinking. Individuals concerned about a relative or friend’s drinking and use of drugs can attend Al-Anon meeting for problems related to the alcoholic’s drinking.
Al-Anon’s 2015 Membership Survey reported that 40 percent of Al-Anon members first came to Al-Anon because of a relative or friend’s drug problem. The survey also showed that 85 percent of these members eventually realized that someone drinking also negatively affected their lives.
Al-Anon Family Groups have one focus: to help families and friends of alcoholics. The discussion at meetings and our literature support members’ recovery from the effects of someone else’s drinking. Individuals concerned about a relative or friend’s drinking and use of drugs can attend Al-Anon meeting for problems related to the alcoholic’s drinking.
Al-Anon’s 2015 Membership Survey reported that 40 percent of Al-Anon members first came to Al-Anon because of a relative or friend’s drug problem. The survey also showed that 85 percent of these members eventually realized that someone drinking also negatively affected their lives.
Here are examples some of what you can expect to hear in meetings....
The Suggested Al-Anon Preamble to the Twelve Steps:
The Al-Anon Family Groups are a fellowship of relatives and friends of alcoholics who share their experience, strength, and hope in order to solve their common problems. We believe alcoholism is a family illness and that changed attitudes can aid recovery. Al-Anon is not allied with any sect, denomination, political entity, organization, or institution; does not engage in any controversy; neither endorses nor opposes any cause. There are no dues for membership. Al-Anon is self-supporting through its own voluntary contributions. Al-Anon has but one purpose: to help families of alcoholics. We do this by practicing the Twelve Steps, by welcoming and giving comfort to families of alcoholics, and by giving understanding and encouragement to the alcoholic.
- Suggested Al-Anon Preamble to the Twelve Steps. 2005. All Rights Reserved.
- Reprinted with permission of ©Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, Inc., Virginia Beach, VA
The Al-Anon Family Groups are a fellowship of relatives and friends of alcoholics who share their experience, strength, and hope in order to solve their common problems. We believe alcoholism is a family illness and that changed attitudes can aid recovery. Al-Anon is not allied with any sect, denomination, political entity, organization, or institution; does not engage in any controversy; neither endorses nor opposes any cause. There are no dues for membership. Al-Anon is self-supporting through its own voluntary contributions. Al-Anon has but one purpose: to help families of alcoholics. We do this by practicing the Twelve Steps, by welcoming and giving comfort to families of alcoholics, and by giving understanding and encouragement to the alcoholic.
- Suggested Al-Anon Preamble to the Twelve Steps. 2005. All Rights Reserved.
- Reprinted with permission of ©Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, Inc., Virginia Beach, VA
Suggested Al-Anon/Alateen Meeting Welcome:
We welcome you to the group name Al-Anon (and/or Alateen) Family Group and hope that you will find in this fellowship the help & friendship we have been privileged to enjoy.
We who live, or have lived, with the problem of alcoholism, understand as perhaps few other can. We, too, were lonely and frustrated, but in Alanon/Alateen 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.
We urge you to try our program. It has helped many of us find solutions that lead to serenity. So much depends on our own attitudes, and as we learn to place our problem in its true perspective, we find it loses its power to dominate our thoughts and our lives.
The family situation is bound to improve as we apply the Alanon ideas. Without such spiritual help, living with an alcoholic is too much for most of us. Our thinking becomes distorted by trying to force solutions, and we become irritable and unreasonable without knowing it.
The Alanon/Alateen program is based on the 12 Steps (adapted from Alcoholics Anonymous), which we try, little by little, one day at a time, to apply to our lives, along with our slogans and the Serenity Prayer. The loving interchange of help among members and the daily reading of Alanon literature thus makes us ready to receive the priceless gift of serenity.
Anonymity is an important principle of the Alanon/Alateen program. Everything that is said here, in the group meeting and member-to-member, must be held in confidence. Only in this way can we feel free to say what is in our minds and hearts, for this is how we help one another in Alanon.
- The World Service Office (WSO) provides a suggested welcome/opening statement and closing statement that groups can use or modify for use at their meetings.
- These opening and closing statements can be found in the book, “How Al-Anon Works,” (the opening is on page 8 and the closing is on page 380.), in the Al-Anon/Alateen Service Manual, in
the new “Al-Anon and Alateen Groups at Work” booklet (publication number P-24,) in the Al-Anon pamphlet “This is Al-Anon” (P-32,) and in Al-Anon World Service Guideline number G-22.
Many of these publications can be found in the Manuals and Guidelines section of the WSO website.
We welcome you to the group name Al-Anon (and/or Alateen) Family Group and hope that you will find in this fellowship the help & friendship we have been privileged to enjoy.
We who live, or have lived, with the problem of alcoholism, understand as perhaps few other can. We, too, were lonely and frustrated, but in Alanon/Alateen 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.
We urge you to try our program. It has helped many of us find solutions that lead to serenity. So much depends on our own attitudes, and as we learn to place our problem in its true perspective, we find it loses its power to dominate our thoughts and our lives.
The family situation is bound to improve as we apply the Alanon ideas. Without such spiritual help, living with an alcoholic is too much for most of us. Our thinking becomes distorted by trying to force solutions, and we become irritable and unreasonable without knowing it.
The Alanon/Alateen program is based on the 12 Steps (adapted from Alcoholics Anonymous), which we try, little by little, one day at a time, to apply to our lives, along with our slogans and the Serenity Prayer. The loving interchange of help among members and the daily reading of Alanon literature thus makes us ready to receive the priceless gift of serenity.
Anonymity is an important principle of the Alanon/Alateen program. Everything that is said here, in the group meeting and member-to-member, must be held in confidence. Only in this way can we feel free to say what is in our minds and hearts, for this is how we help one another in Alanon.
- The World Service Office (WSO) provides a suggested welcome/opening statement and closing statement that groups can use or modify for use at their meetings.
- These opening and closing statements can be found in the book, “How Al-Anon Works,” (the opening is on page 8 and the closing is on page 380.), in the Al-Anon/Alateen Service Manual, in
the new “Al-Anon and Alateen Groups at Work” booklet (publication number P-24,) in the Al-Anon pamphlet “This is Al-Anon” (P-32,) and in Al-Anon World Service Guideline number G-22.
Many of these publications can be found in the Manuals and Guidelines section of the WSO website.
Suggested Al-Anon/Alateen Meeting Closing:
In closing, I would like to say that the opinions expressed here were strictly those of the person who gave them. Take what you like and leave the rest.
The things you heard were spoken in confidence and should be treated as confidential. Keep them within the walls of this room and the confines of your mind.
A few special words to those of you who haven’t been with us long: Whatever your problems, there are those among us who have had them too. If you try to keep an open mind, you will find help. You will come to realize that there is no situation too difficult to be bettered and no unhappiness to great to be lessened.
We aren’t perfect. The welcome we give you may not show the warmth we have in our hearts for you. After a while, you’ll discover that though you may not like all of us, you’ll love us in a very special way – the same way we already love you.
Talk to each other, reason things out with someone else, but let there be no gossip or criticism of one another. Instead, let the understanding, love, and peace of the program grow in you, one day at a time.
Will all who care to, join me in closing with the chairperson's choice prayer?
In closing, I would like to say that the opinions expressed here were strictly those of the person who gave them. Take what you like and leave the rest.
The things you heard were spoken in confidence and should be treated as confidential. Keep them within the walls of this room and the confines of your mind.
A few special words to those of you who haven’t been with us long: Whatever your problems, there are those among us who have had them too. If you try to keep an open mind, you will find help. You will come to realize that there is no situation too difficult to be bettered and no unhappiness to great to be lessened.
We aren’t perfect. The welcome we give you may not show the warmth we have in our hearts for you. After a while, you’ll discover that though you may not like all of us, you’ll love us in a very special way – the same way we already love you.
Talk to each other, reason things out with someone else, but let there be no gossip or criticism of one another. Instead, let the understanding, love, and peace of the program grow in you, one day at a time.
Will all who care to, join me in closing with the chairperson's choice prayer?
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Please feel free to access the Conference Approved Literature below:
Just for Today • Are You Troubled by Someone's Drinking? • Did You Grow Up with a Problem Drinker? • Detachment • These materials are reprinted with permission of Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, Inc., Virginia Beach, VA. Compliance with Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, Inc.’s copyrights and trademarks is required. |
You can also check out the Al-Anon World Service Office page on social media:
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