We are three men from Texas with collectively over 40 years in Al-Anon, a 12-step program for those living  with an alcoholic. This is a totally unique situation. Even today, only 15% of Al-Anons are men. 

   We wrote this post the day before Halloween last year (2007) without the slightest thought that so many would read it. It is accounting for about 1/4 of the "hits" on our blog now, which has  more than 70 posts, so it is obvious that men REALLY DO have trouble admitting powerlessness! 

Please help us help many other men by forwarding this post to any  man you know who would find it sooooooo difficult to admit powerlessness over anything! 

Many thanks,

Ken P., Bob T., and Scott B.

   The reality of the culture in America today is that men are treated differently from women, starting in early childhood. We are taught the value of self-sufficiency. Throughout our childhoods we are in millions of subtle ways told that we are to be "big boys."

   12-step programs like AA and Al-Anon require a level of honesty and humility that are so absolutely the opposite of our upbringing. The very first step (below) requires admission of powerlessness over our addiction, and that it is TERRIBLY difficult for most men. 

   Because of this early conditioning, after all of the "John Wayne" modeling, any man taking the first step has to have reached a bottom that has ripped all personal self esteem from him. The first step says;

"We admitted that we were powerless over alcohol and that our lives had become unmanageable."

   I have sponsored many men during the years, and I can tell you that these men tried everything imaginable to either handle their own alcoholism, and/or to "manage" an alcoholic wife (or maybe the alcoholic was a son or a daughter or a mother or a father).

   These guys spent sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars on treatment centers, begged and pleaded, sought out countless counselors, called the police, and hauled their wives, daughters and sons to the offices of one physician after another as their bodies deteriorated from the inexorably slow physical and mental decline caused by swallowing alcohol.

   If you are such a man, or know one, just direct him to AA or Al-Anon. There this "Man's Man"  will learn to listen, contemplate, accept help, grow, and overcome his early conditioning. We guarantee that he will not become less manly!

Call: 1-888-4AL-ANON or access: www.al-anon.alateen.org

AA is always in the front of every phone book, and the program is all over the net.