Meetings

Every meeting is different. Each meeting has the autonomy to be run as its members choose, within guidelines designed to promote Al-Anon unity. Al-Anon recommends that you try at least six different meetings before you decide if Al-Anon will be helpful to you.

Al-Anon is a mutual support group. Everyone at the meeting shares as an equal. No one is in a position to give advice or direction to anyone else.

You are free to ask questions or to talk about your situation at your first meeting. If you’d rather just listen, you can say “I pass,” or explain that you’d just like to listen.

Al-Anon is not a religious program. Even when the meeting is held in a religious center, the local Al-Anon group pays rent to that center and is not affiliated in any way with any religious group. Your religious beliefs—or lack of them—are not a subject for discussion at Al-Anon meetings.

Al-Anon groups practice anonymity. Anonymity means that the people in the room will respect the confidentiality of what you say and won’t approach you outside the room in a way that compromises your privacy or the privacy of anyone who attended an Al-Anon meeting.