So, in my continuous search for "what the fuck is wrong with me?" I happened upon a list of questions. The answers to these question lead to you to understand whether or not you might need al-anon as a support in your life. Here are the questions from the southern illinois al-anon website:
Do you constantly seek approval and affirmation?
Do you fail to recognize your accomplishments?
Do you fear crtiticism?
Do you over-extend yourself?
Have you had problems with your own compulsive behavior?
Do you have a need for perfection?
Are you uneasy when   your life is going smoothly, continually anticipating problems?
Do you feel more alive in the midst of a crisis?
Do you still feel responsible for others, as you did for the problem drinker in your life?
Do you care for others easily, yet find it difficult to care for yourself?
Do you isolate yourself from other people?
Do you respond with fear to authority figures and angry people?
Do you feel that individuals and society in general are taking advantage of you?
Do you have trouble with intimate relationships?
Do you confuse pity with love, as you did with the problem drinker?
Do you attract and/or seek people who tend to be compulsive and abusive?
Do you cling to relationships because you are afraid of being alone?
Do you mistrust your own feelings and the feelings expressed by others?
Do you find it difficult to identify and express your emotions?
Do you think parental drinking may have affected you?

I answered yes to almost all of these questions. In fact, they might as well be a laundry list for the emotional problems I've been struggling with my entire life. So, yay, now I have a direction. But...as I look into meetings I'm getting more and more discouraged. al-anon, like AA is based on a twelve-step program. Great. But my problem comes with the steps that say you need to give yourself over to a higher power, in the actual steps it even says "god" and I have a hard time dealing with that. I'm an atheist. I do not believe in god, and I think most of my problems came when I tried to hand over my issues to spirituality in general. Spirituality is not, for me, a good curative, it can actually make me sicker. So...what do I do about this? In researching, asking therapist(s), and exploring my options my answer seems to be: make a new organization for family members and friends of alcoholics who are also atheists. Or at least people who don't want religion in their therapy. Grrrr.

Basically what other people have said to me is that I should think of the 'higher power' as a higher part of myself, which would work a lot better if step three weren't: "Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God" and step 7 weren't: "Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings" and step 11 weren't "Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood God, praying only for knowledge of God's will for us and the power to carry that out"
I mean, seriously, when the steps to recovery require turning my will over to god, and I don't believe in god, I have problems. I want to go to the support group, and I will, but I keep thinking there must be a number of people like me out there who aren't necessarily religious, and want some sort of system to support them in the battle to get better and deal with a family member who is an alcoholic without a great deal of dogmatic sounding religiousity.

Oy.