Al-Anon/Alateen Slogans

Steps - Traditions - Slogans and Other Helpful Information

Slogans

Keep It Simple
But For The Grace Of God
Easy Does It
First Things First
Let It Begin With Me
Just For Today

How Important Is It
Think
One Day At A Time
Keep An Open Mind
Live And Let Live
Let Go And Let God

Suggested Al-Anon/Alateen Meeting Opening

These are the basic materials for conducting an Al-Anon/Alateen meeting, copied directly from the Al-Anon Alateen Service Manual, 2018-2021, version 2 pages 11-20. Some groups may modify these materials for their use.

Suggested Al-Anon/Alateen Welcome
We welcome you to the ____________ Al-Anon/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 Al-Anon/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 Al-Anon 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 Al-Anon/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 Al-Anon literature thus makes us ready to receive the priceless gift of serenity.
Anonymity is an important principle of the Al-Anon /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 Al-Anon.

Suggested 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 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.

Twelve Steps

Study of these Steps is essential to progress in the Al-Anon program. The principles they embody are universal, applicable to everyone, whatever your personal creed. In Al-Anon, we strive for an ever-deeper understanding of these Steps, and pray for the wisdom to apply them to our lives.

We admitted we were powerless over alcohol — that our lives had become unmanageable.
Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to others, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

-Reprinted with permission of Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, Inc., Virginia Beach, VA.

Twelve Traditions

The Twelve Traditions The Traditions summarize the Al-Anon principles that have proven to help Al-Anon groups function effectively.

Our common welfare should come first; personal progress for the greatest number depends upon unity.
For our group purpose there is but one authority—a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants—they do not govern.
The relatives of alcoholics, when gathered together for mutual aid, may call themselves an Al-Anon Family Group, provided that, as a group, they have no other affiliation. The only requirement for membership is that there be a problem of alcoholism in a relative or friend.
Each group should be autonomous, except in matters affecting another group or Al-Anon or AA as a whole.
Each Al-Anon Family Group has but one purpose: to help families of alcoholics. We do this by practicing the Twelve Steps of AA ourselves, by encouraging and understanding our alcoholic relatives, and by welcoming and giving comfort to families of alcoholics.
Our Family Groups ought never endorse, finance or lend our name to any outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property and prestige divert us from our primary spiritual aim. Although a separate entity, we should always co-operate with Alcoholics Anonymous.
Every group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions.
Al-Anon Twelfth Step work should remain forever non-professional, but our service centers may employ special workers.
Our groups, as such, ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve.
The Al-Anon Family Groups have no opinion on outside issues; hence our name ought never be drawn into public controversy.
Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, films, and TV. We need guard with special care the anonymity of all AA members.
Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our Traditions, ever reminding us to place principles above personalities.

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 liked 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 too 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 of prayer and/or declaration below).

Al‑Anon Declaration
Let It Begin with Me
When anyone, anywhere, reaches out for help,
let the hand of Al‑Anon and Alateen always be there,
and-- Let It Begin with Me.

The Lord's Prayer
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name;
thy kingdom come;
thy will be done;
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation;
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
the power and the glory,
for ever and ever.
Amen.

Serenity Prayer
God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can,
and wisdom to know the difference.

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