You Drink, and Someone You Love Drinks

You drink, and someone you love drinks, and you have been trying to decide which of those facts is allowed to count tonight. Both of them are already in the kitchen. The glass in your hand is yours. The fear you feel about their glass is also yours, and it has been running your sleep.

A.A. is the door for your drinking. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. That desire can be years old, or it can have started while you were standing at the sink. Al-Anon is mutual support for someone else's drinking, whether or not that person admits it or seeks help. It is not the program for your drinking. If you send yourself only there to get sober, you will be sitting in the room about them and calling that a plan for you.

Two rooms, because both things are true

You might need both. One meeting does not erase the other. You can sit in A.A. and talk about what you drank and what you are doing about it. You can sit in Al-Anon because their drinking has been in your ears every time a car slows down outside. The difference between the fellowships is a plain map, so you do not hand your sobriety to a family meeting by mistake.

Al-Anon does not ask you to wait until they agree. Families and friends can find that help whether or not the person admits a problem or goes looking for any help at all. You can go without them in the car. The guide for going alone stays with that empty seat. Their refusal is not a lock on your A.A. door. A desire to stop is your requirement. It is not a vote you have to win at the table before you are allowed to want it.

You can listen in either room. People new to A.A. are welcome to sit and listen, or to share if they want. There are no dues or fees. What you put in a basket is up to you. Al-Anon is not religious, and it has no dues. None of that turns one fellowship into the other. A room full of people who love someone who drinks is not the same hour as a room for a desire to stop.

Their meeting will not get you sober

It makes sense that you want one errand. You are tired, and two fellowships sound like two more nights you have to borrow from a messy house. The short plan, Al-Anon only, leaves your drinking unnamed. People in that room are there because someone else's drinking reached them. They are not your A.A. group. The help they offer is aimed at what a drinker has done to a family, not at carrying you through a desire to stop.

When you do go to A.A., the point of the sharing is experience, strength, and hope. People talk about what drinking did, what they did to stop, and how they live now. The hour can hold the fact that someone you love also drinks. It is still a meeting about recovery from your drinking. If the only honest line you have is that you want to stop, that line is a membership fact. You do not have to repair their life before you take a chair for yours.

If you are afraid they will be angry that you went to either meeting, you can still go. You can tell them where you are going. You can also go and talk about it later. Nothing on the Al-Anon newcomers page makes their permission a requirement for a chair. Nothing in the membership line makes their blessing a requirement for yours. What Al-Anon is is there if the name still feels slippery. What a first A.A. meeting is like is there if the alcohol room is the one you keep postponing. The Tradition Three door is the same desire, said as a way in.

If tonight is medically sharp

Call 911 if you are sick, confused, or cannot breathe, or if they are. Call or text 988 if you are in a mental health crisis. If you have been drinking heavily over time and you stop suddenly, NIAAA says alcohol withdrawal can be life-threatening. A meeting cannot manage that. The withdrawal guide is plain language for the signs, and 911 is the move when those signs are in the room with you.

NIDA describes mutual-help groups such as A.A. as peer-led, not led by healthcare professionals, and not a substitute for treatment. They are not detox. FindTreatment.gov lists programs. SAMHSA's National Helpline, 1-800-662-HELP (4357), is free, confidential, and available 24/7 in English and Spanish.

The meetings search on this site is not a verified list. Use it as a look toward an A.A. meeting, then confirm what you find. For their side of the night, use how to find an Al-Anon meeting. You can just listen in A.A. if speaking feels like too much on top of everything else you are carrying.

Tonight, pick the room that matches the hurt you can actually sit with. If what you need is to stop, start with a meeting for your drinking. If their drinking is the thing that has you shaking, Al-Anon can be the other hour, including an hour they never attend. Two rooms in one week is a sane answer when both facts are true.

Call (800) 653-9376 if you need treatment; the call is free to you, treatment providers pay for the referral, the line is not an intergroup, and the line is not A.A., and it is not SMART Recovery, and it is not Al-Anon, and it is not Nar-Anon.

Additional Resources

Sources cited on this page:

• Al-Anon Family Groups: What is Al-Anon and Alateen?
• A.A.: The Twelve Traditions
• A.A.: New to A.A.
• A.A.: What to Expect at an A.A. Meeting
• NIDA: Treatment
• NIAAA Core Resource on Alcohol
• SAMHSA National Helpline
• FindTreatment.gov
• 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline
• SmarterRecovery meetings search
• SmarterRecovery about and referral line

Common Questions