I don't see your input as rambling at all. I guess I am more like your husband as I did not care for the depression I experienced at the alanon meetings. I actually needed to be with others who chose to stay and support their husband who is committing to sobriety. I wanted a strong presence to mentor me, but I did not find that and that's because the divorce rate was so high. The couples who did stay tended to both have alcoholism issues and were both working on their sobriety and also attended alanon meetings.

Yes, my husband got a lot of help from older individuals that mentored him like you described. They were kind, good caring people. My husband was young too, many at that time his age did not want to admit they had a problem. Years later my husband would come home and say "you will never guess who I saw at a meeting", and often it was people that distanced and were not so nice way back when. It was a challenge when his mentors passed away. As you know, there ARE good people in the rooms that mentor others. My husband is now one of them.

They really work hard at trying to have meetings too despite how churches shut doors due to Covid.