There Is No Situation Too Difficult, No Unhappiness Too Great

Hi, I'm Buddy T., grateful member of Al-Anon Family Groups.

Because I identify myself online as a member of a 12-step program, I maintain my anonymity at the level of the press, radio, TV and films, as suggested in Tradition 11.

Therefore, I do not use my real name or photo on this, or other recovery-related websites, so that I am free to share my experience, strength, and hope as an Al-Anon member.

To learn how an old newspaperman a member of Al-Anon became to be the manager of The Alcoholism Home page, please see The Alcoholism Guide: A Bit of History.

Some observers are surprised to discover that the website is run by someone who is not a professional counselor or even a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, but I tell them they should not be shocked at all. "Didn't you just know the Alcoholism site would be controlled by an Al-Anon?" I ask.

Since April 1997

I've been doing this since April 21, 1997, when The Mining Company launched it's network of GuideSites. The Mining Co. later became About.com and Alcoholism.About.com became the destination for The Alcoholism Home Page for many years.

Recently, the new owners of the network rolled all of the health-related GuideSites into VeryWell.com and About.com network itself became something called DotDash.com.

Early Online Recovery

But, I was involved in online recovery before the beginning of The Mining Co. My first encounter with online recovery was in one of the old forums at CompuServe. I later joined an Al-Anon email group and helped start a few new groups.

I was part of a group of representatives from several online groups that founded the Online Al-Anon Outreach Committee, which is still helping numerous newcomers today. You can read An Early History of Online Al-Anon for more information on the pioneering days of online recovery.

Live Chat Rooms

About six months after MiningCo.com launched, the network installed chat rooms on all of its GuideSites on Oct. 18, 1997 and at the Alcoholism site we soon began to conduct online meetings live in real time. We eventually had 8 alcoholism-related chat rooms for various 12-step fellowship meetings.

In 2004, About.com decided to shut down all of those chat rooms and the alcoholism rooms were moved to StepChat.com where there are 117 live chat meetings each week on the schedule, and court-ordered participants can receive confirmation of meeting attendance.

There is also DrySpace.org, which originally was a blog site for various 12-step members, but is now a news aggregate site that features the latest scientific research findings on alcoholism and substance abuse issues.

Resources, Fellowship, and News

Those are the three main components of The Alcoholism Guide:

• The Alcoholism Home Page - with information and resources for those seeking solutions for very real problems in their lives.


• StepChat.com - an online community where 12-step members can go to real-time meetings or fellowship with others 24/7 in the open chat rooms.


• DrySpace.org - where you can find the very latest research findings on alcoholism, addiction, and other substance-abuse related issues.

If you have any questions or comments, you can also contact me here.

-- BuddyT   

Return to The Alcoholism Guide.