Al Anon marks 36 years of providing help in Ballymena

They welcomed members from other Al Anon groups and local organisations including the Ballymena Hope Centre, Samaritans, local GPs and members of the local Health Trust who deal with mental health and addiction issues.

For those who don’t know, Al Anon is a worldwide fellowship in its 60th year, having been founded in America by the close relatives of recovering alcoholics who realised that they, too, needed help and support of meeting on a regular basis.

Members share their experience, strength and hope in order to solve their common problems, whether the alcoholic is still drinking or not.

Al Anon groups provide understanding, strength and hope to anyone whose life is, or has been deeply affected by someone else’s drinking. Shared experience and changed attitudes enable the situation to be improved for everyone concerned and may even encourage the drinker to recognise the problem and seek help, if they have not already done so.

Al Anon is based on the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions adapted from Alcoholics Anonymous. It is non-professional, self-supporting, non-religious, non-political and multi-racial.

The group is for anyone who is or has been affected by someone else’s drinking. Its membership includes adult children of alcoholics, teenagers, parents, partners, spouses and other relatives and friends of alcoholics.

Al Anon works by members attending meetings, at which they can either speak or just listen. Between meetings they may also make telephone calls to other members, read Al Anon literature and apply the Al Anon Twelve Steps of recovery to their own lives.

Al Anon is confidential, members are known only by their first names and everything that is said in the meeting is treated as confidential.

There are now over 30,000 Al Anon meetings in over 100 countries. Al Anon is affordable – there are no dues for membership as it is a self-funding organisation through the voluntary contributions of its members and the sale of literature.

The local Ballymena Al Anon group meets every Tuesday evening at 8.30pm in Woodvale Beacon House, 32 Ballymoney Road.- For further information on Al Anon and a meeting near you, please telephone our information office on 028 90682368.

There is also a website www.al-anonuk.org.uk