Tag Archives: Al-Anon recovery and support meetings

Detox From Drugs and Alcohol, Drug and Alcohol Addiction, Drug Rehab Treatment Therapies

Humanistic Therapies and Treatments in Kelowna, BC – Options Okanagan

Humanistic Therapies and Treatments for Drug and Alcohol Addiction in Kelowna, British Columbia by Options Okanagan Treatment Counselors and Therapists to help individuals through difficult times in their lives.

Certainly one of the actual intentions, objectives and benefits of humanistic therapy treatment is that the therapies encourage self-confidence, self-assurance and mindfulness which allows individuals to transition and changeover from a habit of reactionary and reactionist behaviors into improved and successful practice of self-awareness, thoughtfulness and considerate actions. This is really a key to long-term recovery from addictions.

Alcohol addiction (alcoholism) and drug addiction in Kelowna

In the course of humanistic therapy treatments, individuals are treated in a approach that draws attentions to their own natural virtuousness as well as kindness. The humanistic therapist and counselor acts in ways and techniques that are in step with the actual attitude and mindset of unconditional positive regard, compassion, empathy, genuineness, and uniformness.

Al-Anon and Alateen Group Meetings on Alcoholism - Frequently Asked Questions – Kelowna, British Columbia - Options Okanagan Treatment Center for Alcoholism

“Humanistic therapy has a crucial and all-important opportunity to guide our troubled culture and tradition back to its healthy path. A lot more than any other therapy treatment, Humanistic-Existential therapy treatment models democracy. This imposes upon the patient least of all. Freedom to choose and decide on is maximized and at it’s peek. All of us validate our patients’ human potential.” – Doctor Alex Biharnoly, Humanistic and Human-centered Psychologist and Psycho therapist.

Teens Living with Alcohol addiction in Kelowna

Al-Anon or Alateen Group meetings, Al-Anon or Alateen Groups, Detox From Drugs and Alcohol, Drug and Alcohol Addiction

Al-Anon in Kelowna and What Do Medical Professionals Say About Al-Alnon/Alateen – Part 1

A lot of doctors, experienced therapists and experienced counselors of substance abuse problems and issues refer family members and friends of problem drinkers and alcoholics to Al-Anon/Alateen. The Al-Anon program complements and enhances other forms and styles of therapy as well as treatment.

Al-Anon and Alateen Group Meetings on Alcoholism - Kelowna, British Columbia - Options Okanagan Treatment Center for Alcoholism

Al-Anon is a vital and essential resource

Al-Anon is a vital, essential and important resource for helping and assisting families find ways and methods to become healthy again. Through attending to their needs and their behaviors and actions, the family is much better able and in a position to own their responsibility as well as role in the destructive and harmful family patterns of substance abuse. Al-Anon Family Groups assist and aid family members to better handle and deal with the business of daily living for their own benefit and welfare, not just for the alcoholic or family member with substance abuse issues. This improves and enhances the individual member of the family’s sense of well-being, and often includes a positive impact on the behavior and conduct of the actual alcoholic.

Al-Anon Group Meetings on Alcoholism - Kelowna, British Columbia - Options Okanagan Treatment Center for Alcoholism

Al-Anon group meetings are a helpful and valuable tool for families with substance abuse problems

Al-Anon group meetings are a helpful and beneficial tool to help and assist medical professional’s clients recover and recuperate from their own sense and feeling of self. Al-Anon helps men and women find and discover healthy ways to take care of and deal with themselves; not everybody else.

Alateen Group Meetings on Alcoholism – Kelowna, British Columbia - Options Okanagan Treatment Center for Alcoholism

Al-Anon comes with a lifelong and long term support and assistance system built-in.

Al-Anon comes with an ongoing and lifelong support and assistance system which augments and increases, reinforces and strengthens what happens within treatment and therapy. A number of the benefits and positive aspects of Al-Anon are:

a) A sense and feeling of belonging through identifying with other people who have experienced exactly the same kinds of dilemmas, problems and difficulties in dealing with substance abuse issues.

b) Coping and problem management strategies and approaches for dealing with and handling negative emotions.

c) A crisper and clearer focus on an individual’s own goals, objectives and aspirations, instead of on somebody else’s drinking problems.

d) Mutual and shared support and assistance, a healthy and wholesome alternative to keeping and maintaining secrets, and trusting and having faith in no one.

Al-Anon and Alateen Family and Group Meetings on Alcoholism - Kelowna, British Columbia - Options Okanagan Treatment for Alcoholism

Going to Al-Anon group meetings is an opportunity and chance that helps people develop the healthy relationship skills that the majority of members of alcoholic families do not learn and understand otherwise.

Al-Anon or Alateen Group meetings, Al-Anon or Alateen Groups, Drug Rehab Treatment Therapies

Al-Anon and Alateen on Alcoholism – Frequently Asked Questions – Kelowna, BC – Part 2

Al-Anon and Alateen Group Meetings on Alcoholism – Frequently Asked Questions – Kelowna, British Columbia – Options Okanagan Treatment Center for Alcoholism

What about problems and issues other than somebody else’s Alcohol drinking?

Al-Anon and Alateen Group Meetings on Alcoholism - Frequently Asked Questions – Kelowna, British Columbia - Options Okanagan Treatment Center for Alcoholism

In addition to alcohol abuse or alcoholism, newcomers as well as Al-Anon members may be worried and concerned about a relative or even a friend who has yet another kind of addiction, mental illness, mental disease, psychopathy, compulsive, addictive or problematic behavior and conduct. Even though Al-Anon’s principles and guidelines can be applied to a lot of different and distinct situations and concerns or issues, the Al-Anon program focuses and concentrates upon helping members recover from and get over the effects of somebody else’s drinking problems. Newcomers as well as Al-Anon/Alateen members will also be encouraged to seek and look for help and assistance from other additional resources for their concerns and issues in addition to OR other than someone else’s drinking when needed and required.

Is Al-Anon or Alateen compatible with and suitable for the professional care, treatment and services other people offer?

Al-Anon Meetings on Alcoholism in Kelowna, British Columbia - Options Okanagan Treatment Center for Drugs and Alcoholism

Yes. Al-Anon/Alateen is a peer support and assistance group. As peers, they will exchange their respective and particular experiences. The common sharing among members helps members to realize and understand that they have a wide range of options that they may not have realized and noticed they had and experienced before participating in Al-Anon or Alateen. Al-Anon members do not really give direction or even prescribe specific solutions and alternatives for other Al-Anon or Alateen members.

Is the Al-Anon or Alateen Family Groups program religious, spiritual, faith-based, non secular?
It is spiritually-based on principles and concepts applicable to individuals from a wide selection of backgrounds and applicable and relevant to individuals regardless of and no matter what their religious beliefs or values – or lack of religious beliefs and philosophy.

What is the Al-Anon or Alateen meeting format or structure and exactly what do members talk about and discuss at these meetings?

Al-Anon Group Meetings on Alcoholism and Frequently Asked Questions in Kelowna, British Columbia - Options Okanagan Treatment Center for Alcoholics

The majority of Al-Anon and Alateen groups or organizations have a discussion or dialogue topic or subject matter at their meetings such as acceptance, toleration, overcoming and alleviating fear and concern, change, one of Al-Anon’s slogans (Easy Does It, One Day at a Time) or one of the Twelve Steps. Al-Anon and Alateen group meetings are facilitated through members, instead of a professional. Each and every week, a different fellow member chairs the meetings on a different subject or issue.

Why do Al-Anon or Alateen members continue to go to Al-Anon or Alateen after the problem drinker is in treatment, therapy, sober, attending Alcoholics Anonymous, or even no longer actively involved with the person’s life?

Al-Anon and Alateen Meetings on Alcoholism and FAQ in Kelowna, British Columbia - Options Okanagan Treatment Center for Alcoholism

Al-Anon or Alateen is a program of self discovery and personal growth and development. Recovery is an ongoing process and isn’t tied to regardless of whether or not the problem drinker or alcoholic carries on drinking, is visibility present, or actively involved with a Al-Anon member’s life. The effects and results of somebody else’s drinking are deep and can present challenges and issues which continue throughout life.
Al-Anon and Alateen members form brand new friendships with other fellow members and often will find great personal satisfaction and fulfillment in maintaining relationships with their Al-Anon friends. Al-Anon and Alateen members also strengthen and reinforce their very own recovery and find wonderful satisfaction is sharing and discussing their application of the Al-Anon program with other newcomers to Al-Anon and Alateen.

Al-Anon or Alateen Group meetings, Al-Anon or Alateen Groups

Al-Anon and Alateen on Alcoholism in Kelowna, BC – Frequently Asked Questions – Part 1

Al-Anon and Alateen Group Meetings on Alcoholism – Frequently Asked Questions – Kelowna, British Columbia – Options Okanagan Treatment Center for Alcoholism

How will going to Al-Anon or Alateen organizations or groups help addiction patients, sufferers, clients, consumers, or even students?

Al-Anon and Alateen Group Meetings on Alcoholism - Frequently Asked Questions – Kelowna, British Columbia - Options Okanagan Treatment Center for Alcoholism

Adults as well as teenagers participating in Al-Anon or Alateen meetings respectively are happy to find that they’re not alone. Even when uncertain and unsure that a family member or friend’s drinking is causing and leading them to stress as well as despair, men and women going to Al-Anon or Alateen meetings will acquire and obtain information and details about alcoholism or alcohol abuse as an illness and sickness and its impact and effect on the nondrinker. They’ll also learn and find out about the importance and value of family treatment, therapy and recovery whether the alcoholic or problem drinker continues to drink or not drink. They’ll usually be in a position to identify with as well as meet others who may have had similar experiences and encounters as well as hear first-hand how members are choosing the Al-Anon/Alateen program for hope, support, assistance, help, and also to improve their life.

Is an appointment necessary?

Al-Anon Meetings on Alcoholism in Kelowna, British Columbia - Options Okanagan Treatment Center for Drugs and Alcoholism

There is no advance notification, formal or official written referral required going to an Al-Anon or Alateen group meeting. The majority of Al-Anon groups have a person to get in touch with who can be called for information and details about the group, the program in general, or for directions and instructions to a group meeting. A lot of Alateen groups or organizations meet at the same time and place as an Al-Anon group. Alateen group meetings are open only to teens and young adults. (Note: A few Alateen meetings additionally welcome pre-teen aged children)

How does an individual make a referral or recommendation?

Al-Anon Group Meetings on Alcoholism and Frequently Asked Questions in Kelowna, British Columbia - Options Okanagan Treatment Center for Alcoholics

It is helpful and useful to make the patient, individual, client, consumer, or student aware of Al-Anon or Alateen as well as their purpose. Lots of people have never heard about Al-Anon or Alateen.
Even though Al-Anon and Alateen groups and organizations follow the exact same meeting format, every group meeting is a little bit different from each other simply because attendees and topics or subjects of discussion vary and differ each and every week.

Exactly what does Al-Anon or Alateen cost a person?

Al-Anon and Alateen Meetings on Alcoholism and FAQ in Kelowna, British Columbia - Options Okanagan Treatment Center for Alcoholism

There are absolutely no dues or costs, charges, fees for Al-Anon or Alateen membership. The majority of these groups have expenses and costs, and pass a basket or hat around for voluntary contributions. The funds are used to meet the group’s expenses such as rent for the actual meeting rooms, to purchase Al-Anon/Alateen literature, books and materials, to support and to aid the local Al-Anon Information Service, and also to fund the expenses and costs of the members and people who perform service and support on behalf of the group.

How does the Al-Anon Family Groups and also the Al-Anon Family Group Head office, Inc. support themselves?

With the sale of Al-Anon/Alateen literature, books, materials, literary work and as well as voluntary contributions from members, Al-Anon groups, and service and support arms. The Al-Anon Family Group Head office, Inc. and the actual Al-Anon Family Groups don’t accept or agree to grants or even funding from outside sources or places.

Drug and Alcohol Addiction, spiritual

Giving Al-Anon in BC an Attempt May Open Secret Doorways of Alcoholism and Addiction

There are people who have known many individuals and while making an attempt to help the ones they love with alcohol addiction or alcoholism have acted as some type of amateur counselor, therapist or psychologist for a long time in the hope it would help the problem drinker arrive at his or her senses. Eventually and at some point, they find themselves in a dilemma or crisis or find themselves tired, exhausted and drained of energy and unable or unwilling to assist or help anymore and wonder and ask themselves where all this talk therapies ever got them.

Eventually after many years of beseeching, entreating, praying and pleading with someone to stop their drinking, the crisis they have always feared happens and their own life is damaged or sometimes ruined.

So a key message is for anyone who loves a problem drinker is get help for oneself first or they will not only end up as obsessive and as ill as the individual in addiction, they will also be engaging in actions and behavior which will enable and permit the addicted person they love to go much deeper into his or her drug addiction .

A failure to understand where drug and alcohol addiction comes from, how it works and how individuals with serious alcohol addictions end up prevents people who love a problem drinker from really going for a solution of the problem and issues. That’s the reason Al-Anon is an absolute must for an individual or anyone whose member of the family or loved one has a problem with alcohol or drugs. That is also the main reason Al-Anon is an absolutely essential (particularly in the early days) for anyone whose family member, or loved one has developed an addiction and dependency to alcohol.

Not only is loving someone with an dependence on alcohol all consuming, exhausting and stressful, it is also one of the final social or cultural taboos and acknowledging to someone else that they have got a problem drinker in the family or they are married to an alcoholic, for example, is not really what most people feel they are able to or want to confess to. This is often due to a feeling of perceived failure, weakness or shame or simply because most men and women who do not know or love an addict are extremely unkind and unknowing towards the addiction.

There has been a popular view over the years that it is due to an addict’s insufficient willpower that lay behind the problem. So for people who love the individual with an alcohol addiction it is a double whammy or curse. Their heart is breaking inside because from the negative effects drinking is doing to their loved one and on their own life but they feel an extra attack as they do not feel as free to discuss and focus on their problem and difficulty as they would for example if their family member had an illness like cancer.

Nevertheless, Al-Anon and other family counselling groups have had the experience as a support for many years for those affected by living with, or caring about or for somebody with an alcohol addiction or drug problem. They provide a refuge where problems and issues can be discussed and talked about with individuals who understand and who are compassionate and loving. And that is not the only advantage or benefit as Al-Anon helps and aids families and friends of problem drinkers to understand, accept and acknowledge that it is not their fault or wrong doing that the person they know and love is undoubtedly an alcohol addict and that while they cannot change the mind sets from the drinker they can change their own attitudes and see positives where they only have seen darkness and sorrow before.

Al-Anon also helps and assists families and friends of alcohol addicted loved ones to understand the art of disengagement and separation and to make certain they do not enable and allow the person they love to sink more deeply into their alcohol or drug addiction.

Drug and Alcohol Addiction, spiritual

Seeking Serenity through Al-Anon in British Columbia

At Al-Anon group meetings in Vancouver , family members, close relatives and friends of addicts come with each other to share their knowledge, understanding, experience, strength and hope. Al-Anon’s philosophy is that men and women cannot control or stop another person’s alcohol addiction. In the same way addicts who acknowledge and accept Step One of Alcoholics Anonymous declare that they are powerless over alcohol and drugs, Al-Anon members teach and educate powerlessness over loved ones and family member addictions.

However Al-Anon’s companion philosophy is that an individual is entitled to have a serene life even if a loved one chooses to keep on living in active addiction. By joining hand-in-hand and working together to share experiences and knowledge, members in Al-Anon learn and understand tools and skills for living decently, honestly and serenely whether a loved one is actively using or is within recovery. In Al-Anon, members “take what they should like and leave the rest.” What this means is that in almost every group meeting or assembly, members hear something that gives them understanding of their own behavior and attitudes.

Many people embark on Al-Anon using the outlook, expectation or hope that they will learn and understand the strategies for curing and healing a loved one’s drug or alcohol addiction. People may be disappointed and frustrated to understand and fully grasp that no such secret and technique exist. Nevertheless, a lot of people find that by gaining strength and acquiring serenity, and showing their loved ones that they trust and have confidence in them to make their very own decisions and choices, their family members often gain strength too. Whenever people become less preoccupied with a loved one’s drug addiction or dependency , addiction seems to lose its power of them. It can also be not unusual to discover that once people change their need to control and discover how to create boundaries and look after themselves, the addict also begins to change and transform and sometimes seeks help in drug and alcohol treatment centers to recover from their addictions.

There are numerous slogans people learn in Al-Anon which help them practice Al-Anon principles and guidelines in their daily lives. One favorite and preferred is “don’t just do something, sit there.” So frequently, people who worry about their addicts’ lives want to leap in and “solve” their problems. However in Al-Anon they learn to hold back before acting to make sure that what they THINK they must do is really the correct action. For instance, whenever a father or mother receives a phone call from an addicted child seeking money, shelter or some other favor, the normal reaction is to want to help or assist right away. But in Al-Anon, people learn how to sit still and think first. People learn to “give an addict the dignity of making his or her own mistakes,” for that is how addicts may become decent and responsible persons. This may be difficult, but as people share their experiences in Al-Anon they learn that “taking contrary action” is often the best help they can give their addicted family members.

Another helpful slogan is “zip your lip.” Often, an individual’s natural tendency is to provide advice, tell the addict how to proceed and how to get it done. But unless an opinion or advice is sought, they learn to simply listen and say things to the addict such as “I understand you will figure this out” or “that is very interesting.” The addict doesn’t want to be threatened, cajoled or see someone’s anger. If they know they could be listened to without being judged, communication and conversation with them remain open and, hopefully, the addict will at some point realize and recognize they CAN go to the loved one or family member for help and assistance in healing and recovery and also be accepted for who they are. As a result of Al-Anon people learn that often, the fewer questions they will ask, the greater details and selective information an addict gives them.

Al-Anon has helped many people find solutions that lead to serenity. Regardless of what an individual’s religious beliefs are or even if them lack them entirely, people are sure to find help in Al-Anon. Encircled by caring and compassionate people whose struggles are similar to others battling with addiction problems, they will learn tools and skills for taking care of themselves, setting boundaries, and achieving serenity. Just for today, decide to walk one’s own path towards serenity so that the addict can walk theirs.