Maggie worried constantly about her loved one’s drink-driving. “I was anxious that he would either kill himself or hurt or kill someone else,” she told The Royal Gazette.

She found help through Al-Anon a support group for the family and friends of people with drug and alcohol addiction.

Maggie, not her real name, wanted to share her story in honour of September’s Al-Anon Awareness month.

The friends and family of alcoholics can experience a gamut of problems as a result of their association with the alcoholic, from stress-related illnesses to injuries related to physical abuse by the alcoholic. There can also be legal problems.

“There are alcoholics who steal,” Maggie said. “Some people blackout when drinking and do not remember what they have done, and they may have done anything ― including murder and rape.”

Going to Al-Anon helped reduce her stress and anxiety.

“I really do not worry about the drink-driving, as much as I once did,” she said.

One of Al-Anon’s slogans is ‘live and let live’, reminding members to allow others the dignity of making their own decisions and experiencing the consequences of their decisions and choices.

“By minding our own business, we are freed from feeling responsible for changing others,” Al-Anon literature states.

Maggie first went to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting ― targeting the alcoholic, as a teenager to show support for a family member.

When Al-Anon started up, she went to a few meetings, then stopped because her life was busy.

Years later she started attending Al-Anon again, while going through a difficult marriage.

“Al-Anon was so helpful, I am still going to meetings years later,” Maggie said. “There are other people there who have gone through the same sort of experiences that I have, and they listen. They do not make judgment calls on anything.”

Members do not discuss what they have heard in meetings, outside of Al-Anon.

Maggie encouraged people impacted by other’s drinking, to try an Al-Anon meeting.

“Since the Covid-19 epidemic, we have had a downturn in the number of physical people coming in,” she said.

When she first started with Al-Anon, meetings were well-attended with people from all walks of life.

“There were people who were very poor and people who were very wealthy,” she said. “There were people from every part of our community.”

Now the number of people in a meeting can vary from two to ten.

“Sometimes meetings are cancelled because there are not enough people to fill them,” she said.

To keep up with changing times, Al-Anon meetings are now offered online over Zoom.

This month Al-Anon members have been handing out flyers and the Al-Anon monthly magazine Forum, to help raise interest.

“We want to get people to come back to Al-Anon, if they have not been for a while,” she said. “We also want to reach new people.”

She said the main reason people go to their first Al-Anon meeting is to find out how to stop someone from drinking.

However, Al-Anon’s philosophy is that there is little one can do to make someone else quit drinking, if they are not ready to do so.

“All you can really do is focus on yourself and resolving your own challenges,” she said. “However, we can be very helpful to the alcoholic by supporting them, but not by giving them money to drink, and not by handing out bottles of drink, but by not making a judgment call on them.”

Maggie is not a believer in family interventions designed to force the alcoholic to give up drinking.

“Unless the person is ready for it, interventions do not work,” she said. “Very often, the only thing that helps is the alcoholic hitting rock bottom. When that happens they usually do much better afterwards, but sometimes it takes years for them to reach that point.

“Sometimes it takes another recovering alcoholic to really help. AA is excellent for that.”

AA and Al-Anon usually pair members with a mentor, known as a sponsor.

“I had a sponsor in the early days, but I do not have one any more,” Maggie said. “I would like a sponsor, but there is not one, because there are so few people coming to meetings.”

There is a lot of support for Al-Anon and AA from the medical community in Bermuda.

“I would not say every single counsellor or doctor is on board,” Maggie said. “However, it is very much believed that AA and Al-Anon are the strongest ways to help people.”

People of all ages can have a problem with alcohol.

“Some people in Bermuda start drinking at seven or even younger,” she said. “They may not heavily drink, but may sneak alcohol from their parents.

“The parents can be sitting there talking, and the child will take a drink off the table. And there is definitely a problem with teenagers drinking. However, some kids drink heavily, but are not alcoholics and stop.”

She said even if the person with an addiction has left your life, it is still important to get support.

“There are people who have left Al-Anon, as I did, and come back later on, because they realise they cannot manage on their own,” she said.

Al-Anon Bermuda is associated with Al-Anon in North Carolina.

There are Al-Anon meetings on Mondays from 7pm to 8pm on Zoom and at St Paul’s Church in Paget; on Tuesdays from 12.30pm to 1.30pm, in person, in the penthouse on the fifth floor of the Mechanics Building on Church Street in Hamilton and on Fridays from 5.30pm to 6.30pm on Zoom.

Al-Anon will also participate in a Health Department wellness outreach programme on September 22, from 1pm to 4pm on Front Street in Hamilton between Burnaby Hill and Queen Street.

There will be also be an AA conference, with participation by Al-Anon, on November 29 and 30.

“People can certainly buy into that and go to that if they are seriously interested in solving their problems,” Maggie said.

• Bookings can be made through ptix.bm or the AA website. For more information see ncbermudaafg.org, e-mail drdistrict10@gmail.com or call 236-8606.