Sal grew up in a family of drinkers.

“I thought everybody drank to excess,” she said. “I thought everybody put rum in the baby bottle to make the baby go to sleep, or gave a six-year-old wine to drink.”

When she reached her teens, she partied hard and drank hard.

She married an alcoholic, believing the drinking was a phase. She imagined that once they got married, life would settle down. They would both stop drinking and would start a family. The drinking would become a thing of the past.

It didn’t work out that way.

“I stopped but my partner kept drinking,” Sal said. “I could not get him to quit.”

Watching the drinkers around her, she noticed that they got all the attention in the house. Everyone else around the drinker worked hard to clean up their mess. She wanted that kind of love focused on her.

“I desperately wanted to be an alcoholic,” she said. “However, just the smell of the alcohol made me want to vomit.”

Today, she feels blessed that alcoholism was not her path.

In 2005, she went to her first Al-Anon meeting, a 12-step programme for the families and friends of problem drinkers.

“The aim is to keep the focus on ourselves, not on the person with the addiction,” Sal explained. “The purpose is to figure out ways to cope better and also concentrate on what we can do that is realistic.”

The group taught her to accept a hard lesson: it’s not your job to fix the alcoholic.

“Our job is to find serenity and happiness for ourselves,” Sal said.

Support is strictly non-judgmental and confidential.

“It is a very private group,” she said. “What gets said at meetings does not get repeated. We don’t gossip. We don’t interrupt when somebody’s talking. We allow people to express their feelings, even if we don’t agree with them.”

Turning up to a meeting for the first time takes courage. Her advice to newcomers is to take things slowly.

“You don’t have to spill your guts,” she said. “You don’t have to relive every horrible incident that you have experienced. Speak in general terms.”

Meetings focus on learning the 12-step programme and finding solutions. Al-Anon also offers mentorship.

“Having a sponsor is important,” Sal said. “I have had at least three different ones over the years and that is OK.”

Al-Anon taught her the order of healing.

“We always want to work on the pain and the anguish first, but you have to find a safe place first and then work from there,” she said.

Before joining Al-Anon, she felt isolated from the world. As a child she had been taught to never talk about what went on at home.

“I felt like there were walls all around me,” she said. “The programme allowed me to push out the walls. As that happened, I was able to invite more people into my space. At Al-Anon gatherings, nobody is going to suddenly get drunk and violent. It is a safe place.”

The Bermuda fellowship has about 15 regular participants and works closely with Al-Anon in North Carolina. Since the Covid-19 pandemic, more people are going to meetings online.

“That helps people who can’t get to a meeting, but it has its limits,” Sal said. “The online meetings keep a barrier between you and other people.”

She believes that for many people, healing requires the support of flesh-and-blood humans.

Al-Anon has three weekly meetings. On Mondays, One Day at a Time is held from 7 to 8pm at St Paul’s Christian Education Centre, 69 Middle Road, Paget. It also runs virtually. On Tuesdays, there is an open meeting from 12.30 to 1.30pm on the penthouse floor of the Mechanics Building, 12 Church Street, Hamilton. That also offers a virtual option.

“Look for the yellow sign on the door,” Sal said. “Just walk in and join us.”

On Fridays, there is a Zoom-only meeting, 12 Steps to Serenity, from 5.30 to 6.30pm.

Sal said: “No matter how much pain there is, there is always hope. Things can get a little bit better, day by day.”

• For more information, call 519-9364 or seencbermudaafg.org