The material presented
here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method
to exchange
information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal
level.
I am not certain when i can make it to an al-anon meeting...i have a young son and have not found a meeting in my area with babysitting. in the mean time i need to get a book to help me deal with this and better myself.
Welcome to MIP! I also have a small child and am new to alanon. It took me a year or more to commit to attending one face to face meeting a week, which I am finding very helpful. It doesn't have childcare, but I got up the nerve to ask for help from a family member and so far it is working out.
Prior to that, I read everything Melodie Beattie wrote, starting with "Co-dependant No More". She is a recovering addict and co-dependant. Her style of writing, was easy for me to understand and apply in my life. You can find cheap used copies on Amazon or see if your local library has them.
Also, there are on-line meetings here that can be a wonderful substitute for a face to face meeting if need be! At the top of the page in the yellow background, there is a link to the on-line meeting schedule which has links to the meetings.
My alltime fav book is our first daily reader , especially for beginners the ODAT = one day at a time , it offers simple to the point suggestions on how to change my attitude about what is going on around me . This prog is difficult to do by just reading a book , I hope that u keep looking for a meeting and a day care that will be safe for your child for an hr or two while u look after you . Our book Al-Anon faces Alcoholism is full of valuable info , every thing u need to know is in that book . good luck Louise
I love all of the Alanon Books, Courage to Change, One Day at a Time in Alanon, really any of them will help you. As I mentioned in my other response to you though, "Getting Them Sober" by Toby Rice Drew really truly taught me the true way to detach, though I must be dense or something because I had to keep rereading it again and again!! But, it did work and it help me. It is a wonderful book, simply put and easy to read.
Good luck and you are doing great by asking questions and keeping moving toward healing...
In Al-Anon, we offer our Experience, Strength, and Hope to one another. Instead of adding more titles to your list, I'd like to share some of my Experience: When I first came to Al-Anon, I left after 3 or 4 meetings and was not working the Al-Anon program. 20 years later, I returned to AL-Anon and began working my Al-Anon program daily.
At first, the book where I found the most help for *me* was ONE DAY AT A TIME (ODAT) and the pamphlets that were free or cost less than a quarter. Even though I bought a copy of COURAGE TO CHANGE, I just didn't find it helpful then. (Makes me laugh now ... read on)
The Al-Anon literature that is available at most face-to-face meeting is one of the top reasons that I encourage people to attend f2f meetings. (Just my experience that f2f meetings are easier for me than online meetings; the literature displayed where I can look at it before buying just as in a bookstore is one reason I find f2f easier for me.)
So I was reading ODAT daily but also reading selections other than just that day's selection because much of what I was reading was new to me and at last my eyes were open. And I was reading the pamphlets -- over and over again.
After a few months (attending several f2f meetings a week), I can remember that I took another look at COURAGE TO CHANGE. I *wanted* to like it :) ... some members I really admired for how they worked their programs favored COURAGE TO CHANGE over ODAT -- and COURAGE TO CHANGE was "new" then (published just 3 years earlier). But, nope! COURAGE TO CHANGE was still not a book that I cared to read. I was very happy reading what I had over and over again.
Time flowed on. Here I am 12 years later and COURAGE TO CHANGE is my current favorite Al-Anon book ... but I keep in mind that it took me years to find it so. My best suggestion is to follow your own preferences, follow your "gut instinct" about what's best for *you* at any given time.
Also, feel free to read the literature over and over again -- it's never gotten "old" for me.
In any case, I still find that The Twelve Steps of Al-Anon (just the Steps themselves without any explanation) and The Serenity Prayer are the two very best things for me to read.
Just my Experience, offered for whatever it may be worth.
Depending on how much reading time you have, you may find it helpful to CLICK on "Search" at the top of a page of this message board and type in detach
That will bring up (currently) 7 pages worth of threads. Each thread has more than one post, of course. That's a lot of reading! lol But it may be worth taking a look at when you, or anyone else, is so inclined.
The Alanon book I liked best in the very beginning (and that is probably still my favorite) was Paths to Recovery. It has a descriptive introduction to each step and each tradition, and then the more "alanonish" member shares, which in the beginning I found very annoying because they didn't tell me what to do and I didn't have any practice yet extracting ideas for what I MIGHT do. The descriptive intro was much easier for me to follow.
I didn't care for "How Alanon Works" at ALL in the beginning; couldn't understand it; but now I especially like the sections on the Slogans, which Paths to Recovery doesn't have.
I have also heard ppl who had the exact opposite experience with these 2 books, so as someone else said, go with what seems to speak best to you where you are now.
Also, in the spirit of finding out as much as I could about alcoholism, it was ENORMOUSLY helpful to me to read two AA books in particular: the Big Book of AA, also called the Blue Book; and Pass It On, which I found fantastic for understanding the "why" of the traditions.
On the child care issue - around here, the only way people can find out if a meeting has child care is by asking around. If you can get to even one meeting and 1) ask if anybody knows of a mtg with child care, 2) get a meeting list with some phone numbers, that might be a place to start getting in touch with other alanonics in your area, including others who are resolving the child care issue one way or another - there might even be several of you who could pool resources for a babysitter, possibly even at the meeting location - some places will allow this, some won't.
Thank you to everybody for their suggestions. Last night I picked up several books and went back to the addictions section to be drawn to "codependents guide to the twelve steps" by melody beattie.
I read the first chapter last night and it was truly awesome....I am more hopeful today than I was yesterday.
