meetings to help loved ones of alcoholics cope with the situation

“Between anger, pain and dismay”, the participants confide that living with an alcoholic loved one is hell. The meetings, called “Al-Anon”, offer them real relief.

According to the adage, “one person drinks and the whole family toasts”. In France, millions of French people live with or have an alcoholic loved one. So to help them overcome their difficulties, there are meetings reserved for them and allow them to talk and help each other. We were able to attend one of these meetings.

Between guilt, exhaustion, anger and sadness, the participants confide that living with an alcoholic spouse, child or parent is daily hell. “I am the mother of a young alcoholic of 23 yearsexplains a woman whose anonymity, like all the participants in this report, is respected. When you’re close to someone sick like that, you unconsciously put yourself into survival and over time you get there.” She asks herself a lot of questions: “We become obsessed. Has he been drinking? He’s going to drink again, he’s going to relapse… What’s going to happen? He hasn’t come home, has he? Didn’t an accident happen to him?”

“We live in fear. We live in survival.”

The mother of a young alcoholic man

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“Me, it’s my partner who is an alcoholic, confides another woman. I thought my life was over because I was going around in circles counting the number of bottles, trying to stop someone from drinking who didn’t want to stop drinking. Everything had gotten out of control. I was isolated because we don’t talk about it, we aren’t proud of it. And then we want to protect the one we love.”

These women participate every Monday, at lunchtime in Paris, in an Al-Anon meeting: “Al” as alcoholics, “Anon” as anonymous, where whoever comes. On this day, a dozen men and women of all ages sit in a circle on chairs. “Al-Anon Family Groups are a fellowship of relatives and friends of alcoholics. Al-Anon has one goal: to help the families of alcoholics.”says the one who runs the discussion group.

As these meetings are anonymous and confidential, what is said cannot be revealed. For an hour and a half, like the meetings of alcoholics anonymous in American films, everyone speaks whenever they want to vent.

Tears and laughter

At this back-to-school Al-Anon meeting, there was a lot of talk about the end-of-year holidays, a difficult family time because of alcohol. Marie* was impatiently awaiting this new meeting: “We only have three minutes each to talk, but in my case, it’s time. It’s the most intense three minutes I’ve had in months, she confesses. Because I don’t talk to anyone else, except maybe a little to my sisters and my family, about the situation of my sick alcoholic father.“

“It’s an exceptional moment where for three minutes, we can express the events that we have experienced recently. The people who are around this table, they can understand us, they are experiencing the same things. So it’s truly a very, very special moment.”

Marie, daughter of an alcoholic man

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At these meetings of relatives of alcoholics, there are tears when speaking. A box of tissues is even available. We sometimes talk about domestic violence linked to alcohol, but there are also bursts of laughter, recognizes Jeanne* at the end of the meeting. “Those who come for the first time sometimes tell us: ‘It’s funny, you laughed at things that aren’t funny at all’. And it’s true that there’s a bit of a ‘running gag’ to talk about the alcoholics in our lives, who are all in front of their TV all day with their bottles of alcohol. It’s become a funny thing when in fact it’s not funny at all. It’s quite dramatic , but since we really have that in common and we see very well what we’re talking about, it becomes a bit funny”she admits.

Listening and empathy

At these Al-Anon meetings, no one passes judgment on the other, this is the principle, nor gives advice. Everyone is there to listen to each other. “We really feel understood, more than when we talk about it with friends. Even though they are aware of the situation and although they show empathy, they don’t know what it’s really like to be in complicated relationships”underlines a participant.

“Everything is really done with the same objective of just sharing and progressing together in relation to this demon which is alcohol.”

a participant in an Al-Anon meeting

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“We arrive with preconceptions, experiences on alcoholic illness, explains another participant. And we are taught to react differently, to be patient, to let it live, not necessarily to intervene, not to think that we can save the sick alcoholic person. And these are things that you can’t really learn on your own. It would take years of experience to realize this. By living these meetings, we learn from the experiences of others and also to save ourselves. Because sometimes, in wanting to save the sick alcoholic, we fall with them.”

“If I can answer you today, it’s because I joined Al-Anon four years ago, another woman approves. I honestly thought my life was over. Between the anger, the pain, the dismay, I didn’t know what to do.”she confides.

Nearly 150 Al-Anon meeting groups exist throughout France.

*The first name has been changed.