Families Anonymous

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Families Anonymous

Families Anonymous is a 12 Step fellowship for family members and friends of individuals with drug, alcohol or related behaviorial problems. You are not alone.

We are a welcoming and supportive community, founded in 1971.

06/22/2026

It's common to mourn the life we imagined for ourselves and our family when someone close to us abuses drugs and alcohol. The pain goes beyond our fears for their disease and their unwillingness to embrace recovery. It's also about damaged relationships -- those we never had too our desire and others we had and lost. Addiction can put stress on marriages. It can impact relationships with our children, other family members and friends -- some of whom also have been affected, and others who offer unsolicited advice without any experience or basis for their words. So, we feel alone, and we isolate when things go wrong. This is where Families Anonymous can help. We can't force individual relationships to mend. There are two sides to that, but we control only one (ourselves). But by focusing on our recovery, we correct our wrongs, become humbler and more honest with ourselves and others and open the door to healing. Over time, we rebuild bridges and relationships form. We also form strong friendships with others in the FA community and learn from them how they built bridges. In FA, we learn what often works and what doesn't work. We get stronger and our hope for the future grows. The program works if you work it.

06/20/2026

The worst time is when it's quiet. It's easier during the day when we're busy with work or errands or meeting with friends. But at night, when it's quiet, it's only us, alone with our thoughts. "Stinkin' thinkin'," as we call it in the recovery world. Almost everyone who attends their first Families Anonymous meeting has already had sleepless nights because of their loved one's substance use and self-destructive behaviors. We're saddened, angered and dazed by what's happening and we fear for the future. So our head is filled with negative thoughts, debates about what we should do. We regret some of our decisions. But it's like wresting with ghosts. We can't win and we can't stop the noise. But it's important to remember that WE are in control. Negative thoughts persist only as long as we let them. That's why we need the fellowship and the recovery program that Families Anonymous provides. We learn a path to peace and better decision making. We learn how to stay in the moment and not let our minds race. We sleep again. Learn more. Attend a meeting. FA will be here when you're ready.

06/18/2026

No matter what side of the recovery wall we sit -- whether our drug of choice is a drugs/alcohol or fixing/helping/manipulating -- it's easy to get stuck in our own head. We have a lot to process -- our missteps of the past, our fears for the future, our feelings of helplessness and low self-esteem. So, we isolate and wallow in self-pity. We become so desperate to fill that void sometimes that we just want to numb ourselves. Parents of a young adult with substance use disorder sometimes turn to alcohol themselves in hopes of decompressing. One father, who came to Families Anonymous, recalled, "I wasn't drinking to excess but I was probably relying on alcohol to unwind more than I should. One of my son's treatment team members suggested I stop drinking for a year. This struck me as the WORST time to stop drinking. But I did it. A remarkable thing happened. It forced me to learn how to process all of my negative emotions organically. It was one of my greatest life lessons." So, he took walks. He drank water. He closed his eyes, sought a quiet space and meditated, at least as best he could. Doing the next tiny right thing wasn't picking up a glass of wine and trying to disappear or solve all of the problems in his head. It was learning how to slow down his thoughts, seek a spiritual connection and quiet the noise. That's how recovery starts. One step at a time. One day at a time. It's the Families Anonymous way.

06/16/2026

If a referee gives a player a "red card" during this World Cup, it means they are ejecting someone from the game for disciplinary reasons. The player must leave the field, away from his teammates, and his squad must play shorthanded for the rest of the game. There are similar consequences when we experience anger, fear and despair resulting from someone close to us abusing substances, but we think, "I got this." Because we don't. We can't. We're not prepared for this kind of heartache and chaos. So we go off in a million directions, trying a million things that we're convinced "should" work but don't. We isolate, alone with our thoughts and emotions, which is like giving ourselves a red card. We need a program with a system of reality checks. We need a supportive community of others who have learned how to navigate life with similar circumstances. We need an organization like Families Anonymous. The opposite of addiction is not sobriety. The opposite of addiction is connection. Substance abuse -- whether the substance is drug or codependency -- is often a coping mechanism for isolation, depression and emotional distress. Our connection with other FA members erodes that isolation and puts us on a path to recovery. Find your support today.

06/14/2026

The World Cup is underway. A record 48 countries will compete for global soccer supremacy. The winners and losers of each game will not be in dispute because there's a scoreboard. But to win in recovery looks different than simple numbers on a scoreboard, and the prize is something far deeper than a trophy. Those living in long-term recovery from substance use disorder get their lives back. This is where Families Anonymous comes in. Those overcoming their struggles with the non-chemical substances of codependency and the "family disease" also get their lives back. We regain a sense of serenity, clarity and our physical and emotional well-being. We learn how to protect ourselves without necessarily abandoning emotional support of our loved one. We learn to connect spiritually, free of religious precepts. We come to believe peace is attainable, despite unsolved problems. We can sleep again. Unlike soccer, the game never ends. That is why people say they are "in recovery," but not "recovered." Because we should never stop taking care of ourselves -- and when we achieve that, we win. Always. Welcome to FA. The rewards are real.

06/12/2026

When someone close to you enters a treatment program for substance abuse, or they're continuing to drink or drug to excess without acknowledging the problem, there likely will come a point when someone says to you, "You need to take care of yourself." And when that happens, your first thought may be, "When (he/she) stops using, I'll be fine." But what if they don't stop? Or what if they stop but then relapse? And what about the inevitable walking on eggshells or emotional baggage that carries over into relationships? That's where Families Anonymous comes in. Because no matter where our qualifier is in THEIR recovery, we need a program for US. It starts with a meeting. Whether we walk into an in-person meeting or click into one online, we immediately become exposed to philosophies and practices we hadn't considered before, and we meet others who know EXACTLY what we are going through. We share our struggles. We listen as others share their experiences and what they've learned along the way. But it all starts with that first meeting. It all starts when you take that first step. It's time.

06/10/2026

The core reason for our struggle isn't that we don't know what to do when we have a loved one abusing drugs and alcohol. The core reason is we're not giving ourselves a CHANCE to know what to do. Chaos, pain and fear fuel our emotions. Those emotions then drive our actions. If we want to know what's going on inside our head, consider what would happen if we tossed a ping pong ball into a wind tunnel. It's impossible to predict what direction the ball will go. Therein lies an accurate analogy to our decision making. We will always have emotions. It's natural that when something goes wrong, we will feel a twinge of anxiety. But when we work a strong recovery program in Families Anonymous, we learn how to slow down our thoughts after feeling those emotions, before making the best possible decision for OUR recovery. Over time, sometimes quickly, sometimes gradually, we learn to think more and react less, accept the concept of powerlessness and diminish our urges to rescue. That is the program working for us. Stop running in circles. FA will give you the plan for a better way.

06/08/2026

The darkness can be a scary place. When we're in familiar surroundings but the lights are off, we worry that we may walk into a wall or trip over something on the floor. When we're not in a familiar place, or in circumstances that we've never experienced before, it's even worse. We don't know what's going to happen next. When Bill W., the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous wrote the words, "Believe more deeply. Hold your face up to the light, even though for the moment you do not see," it was with a similar context. An individual early in their recovery from substance use disorder doesn't know what's going to happen when they stop using, when relationships will heal or when good things start to happen. But they are told: "Just keep doing the next right thing." Hold onto faith and hope. It works the same in Families Anonymous. The future scares us when we have a loved one struggling with drugs and alcohol because it's unknown. We fear the concept of letting go. We fear boundaries and focusing on self-care. But hold your face to the light, even though for the moment you do not see. Faith, hope and the support of fellow FA members help us move forward against the backdrop of uncertainty. Keep doing the next right thing. Find gratitude with even small victories. We find our way with FA.

06/06/2026

There's a famous saying, "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt. The words are often embraced by those who work a parallel recovery program in Families Anonymous, even if the saying's intended context may not exactly apply to us. We're not dumb people. We're not "fools." But our emotions can drive us to say and do irrational things when we're close to someone who's struggling with drugs and alcohol -- simply because, well, we've never had playbook to follow for this chaos. When we truly accept our powerlessness over someone else's sobriety, it becomes easier to do the difficult but smart thing: Say nothing, or at least as little as possible. Offer support and love for those who seek help? Absolutely. But when they don't believe they have a problem, despite repeated evidence to the contrary, we're powerless. We've learned that yelling, pleading and bargaining doesn't work. They "get it" when they get it, and all we can do is control our own actions and words. Codependent behaviors can help stand in the way of someone's recovery. We can't have rational conversations with people who refuse to think rationally about their own situation. We risk opening ourselves to more endless, hurtful conversations and emotional blackmail. Learning how to check ourselves helps. So does learning the language and philosophies of FA. And sometimes, silence is golden.

06/04/2026

One of the most crucial lessons of the Families Anonymous program is that while we have no control over so many things (and people) in our life, we can control our attitude. Imagine planting 10 seeds in a greenhouse. Several days later, seven of them have sprouted and our first thought is, "What happened to the other three?" But shouldn't our focus be on the seven plants we're growing? This may seem like a trivial analogy when compared to the traumas that led us to FA, but they both fall under one of the guiding principles of the program: Live our life with gratitude over expectations. Negative emotions like anger, guilt, shame, sadness and fear can overwhelm us. It takes work to learn how to focus on hope and faith, to have compassion for others and see the potential of recovery. It's important for our mental and physical well being to constantly remind ourselves that the journey is not over, and during that journey we must take care of ourselves. Find the good. Have a grateful spirit. From that, we grow.

Address

701 Lee Street , Suite 670
Street , MD
60016

Telephone

+18007369805

Website

http://FamiliesAnonymous.org/

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