Al-Anon & Alateen

Alabama, Northwest Florida Area 64

Welcome to Al-Anon & Alateen

Alabama Northwest Florida, Area 64

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.

Alateen is our recovery program for young people. Alateen groups are sponsored by Al-Anon members. The only requirement for membership is that there be a problem of alcoholism in a relative or friend.

Find a Meeting

Find local meeting times and places by selecting your area in the map below.

What Happens At An Al-Anon Meeting

Almost all of us had questions before coming to our first meeting, but we all took that small step to recovery and decided to come. Many of us still come back years later because the meetings help us heal and offer hope.

Please read the questions below to understand what happens at a meeting. Please feel free to email us if you have any additional questions. Perhaps we can help you decide if Al-Anon is for you.

Remember you are not alone. There is always hope.

Al-Anon has thousands of members from every walk of life. No matter what your relationship to the alcoholic, you will find someone else in a similar situation. We all have husbands, wives, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, grandparents, great grandparents and close friends who are alcoholics. We all share a common bond: to heal from the affects of another person’s drinking.

Meetings are held at local schools, churches and hospitals. Meetings are held 7 days a week, both day and night. Meetings offer a safe place where people can come and talk about dealing with the effects of alcoholism in a friend or loved one.

All meetings start at a specific time; most last about an hour or so; some have no formal closing time. You can come into a meeting or leave anytime you choose. Many members come early to greet newcomers and talk to friends, and stay after the meeting to socialize and answer questions. Newcomers walk away from a meeting with Al-Anon literature, which has lots of useful information about dealing with alcoholism in a relative or close friend, and a list of local meetings, together with a list of phone numbers of members in the group who they can contact between meetings, if they need help.

Talking at a meeting is your choice. You do not have to speak, but many newcomers have found it helpful to finally share with others what was going on and how someone else’s drinking is affecting them. You are sharing in a safe place where your anonymity and privacy will be respected. You talk only when you feel ready to share. Sometimes newcomers like to talk privately with one or two Al-Anon members before or after a meeting. Whatever you feel comfortable with is ok by us.

In general, there is a different topic discussed each week at a meeting. Topics help us: get in touch with our feelings, detach from the alcoholic, stop feeling like we’re always the victim, set boundaries with others, identify abuse, get rid of our anger and deal with our resentments. Topics also help us: have healthy relationships with others, raise our self-esteem, face our fears, and deal with our anxiety and depression.

As individuals go around the room sharing on topics and their own situations, you may hear a little bit about yourself in their stories. While you may not identify with everything, in general you will hear others talk about what you may be feeling. Listening to someone else has helped many of us learn about ourselves. Please attend at least 6 meetings so you can decide if Al-Anon is for you. It’s important to find somewhere that you feel comfortable, so we also suggest that you attend different meetings because each meeting has its own style and personality.

We place a high importance on anonymity at all our meetings because this makes our meetings a safe place to share. We only go by first names. No one needs to know that you are attending meetings, unless you choose to tell them. What is said in the rooms, what you hear in the rooms, whom you see in the rooms, stays in the rooms. This is one way we protect our anonymity.

The Al-Anon Program

Al-Anon’s program of recovery is based on the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous. The Steps are the foundation for personal recovery and the Traditions help groups sustain their unity and fellowship.

Events

2022-2024 AWSC ZOOM MEETINGS
 
01/29/2022
08/27/2022
01/28/2023
08/26/2023
01/27/2024
08/26/2024
 
2022-2024 AREA ASSEMBLY DATES
 
10/12-13/2024
 
DEADLINE FOR COURTESY BLOCK OF ROOMS is September 11, 2024
Booking Code is O64
Holiday Inn Express, Eastchase RESERVATIONS 334-271-5516 Rate $114 (King) $119 (Queen)/night
9250 Boyd Cooper Pkwy, Montgomery, AL 36117
 
03/12-13/2022
10/15-16/2022
03/11-12/2023
10/14-15/2023
03/09-10/2024
10/12-13/2024

Friday, Feb. 17 – Sunday, Feb. 19, 2023
“One Journey, Many Voices”

Embassy Suites Birmingham-Hoover
Birmingham, AL 35244
Convention Website
Convention Flyer

  • Mountain Top Round-Up
    Guntersville State Park Lodge
    1155 Lodge Road, Guntersville, AL

  • Hartselle Hope 47th Anniversary
    Sunday, November 17, 2024
    12:30 – 4:30 PM
    Hartselle Tabernacle
    35 Tabernacle Rd. SW
    Hartselle, AL
    Click here for flyer

  • 2nd Annual Chili Cook Off
    Fund Raiser

    Hosted by DISTRICT 6
    Saturday, Nov. 9, 2024
    10:30 AM – 2:00 PM
    Fellowship Hall of Dalraida Global Methodist Church
    3817 Atlanta Hwy,
    Montgomery 36109
    Click here for flyer

Area 64 Contacts

Resources

Professional Outreach

Click below to go to the Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, Inc. web page for Professional Outreach.

Area, District, and Group Serving Member Resources

Access to Area, District, and Group Serving Member Resources is password protected to preserve the anonymity of serving members.

Al-Anon/Alateen Literature

Click to go to the Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, Inc. online store.

Links

The 12 Concepts of Service
  1. The ultimate responsibility and authority for Al-Anon world services belongs to the Al-Anon groups.
  2. The Al-Anon Family Groups have delegated complete administrative and operational authority to their Conference and its service arms.
  3. The right of decision makes effective leadership possible.
  4. Participation is the key to harmony.
  5. The rights of appeal and petition protect minorities and insure that they be heard.
  6. The Conference acknowledges the primary administrative responsibility of the Trustees.
  7. The Trustees have legal rights while the rights of the Conference are traditional.
  8. The Board of Trustees delegates full authority for routine management of Al-Anon Headquarters to its executive committees.
  9. Good personal leadership at all service levels is a necessity. In the field of world service the Board of Trustees assumes the primary leadership.
  10. Service responsibility is balanced by carefully defined service authority and double-headed management is avoided.
  11. The World Service Office is composed of selected committees, executives and staff members.
  12. The spiritual foundation for Al-Anon’s world services is contained in the General Warranties of the Conference, Article 12 of the Charter.

Al-Anon’s Twelve Concepts of Service, copyright 1996 by Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, Inc. Reprinted with permission of Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, Inc.

The 12 Traditions
  1. Our common welfare should come first; personal progress for the greatest number depends upon unity.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. Every group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions.
  8. Al-Anon Twelfth Step work should remain forever non-professional, but our service centers may employ special workers.
  9. Our groups, as such, ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve.
  10. The Al-Anon Family Groups have no opinion on outside issues; hence our name ought never be drawn into public controversy.
  11. 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.
  12. Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our Traditions, ever reminding us to place principles above personalities.

Al-Anon’s Twelve Traditions, copyright 1996 by Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, Inc. Reprinted with permission of Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, Inc.

The 12 Steps
  1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
  2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
  3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
  4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
  5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
  6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
  7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
  8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
  9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
  10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
  11. 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.
  12. 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.

Al-Anon’s Twelve Steps, copyright 1996 by Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, Inc. Reprinted with permission of Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, Inc.