In the spring of 1978, the US Army established an Alcohol Treatment Facility at the 5th General US Army Hospital in Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt. Alcoholics Anonymous, Al-Anon and Alateen meetings were offered there as part of their treatment program. Since this time meeting times and locations have coincided with the English speaking Stuttgart AA Group. Together with the AA Group the Al-Anon Group established a regular Friday night meeting at the Chapel Annex of Flak Kaserne in Ludwigsburg.

The Al-Anon meeting named itself ‘Courage to Change’ and flourished in the eighties. Needless to say that a vast majority of the English speaking Al-Anon membership in Stuttgart was closely linked to the military but there were always non-military English speaking members as well. Due to the withdrawal of U.S. military forces in Germany the size of the meeting decreased. In the early nineties our Friday night meeting moved to Stuttgart, Robinson Barracks (RB). The last meeting place there was at the elementary school.

In the year 2001 – because of strict security measures within the proximity of the military installations – it became very difficult for the non-military members to get access to attend the meeting at RB. With the help of the German AA community, our meeting found a new home at the AA-Kontaktstelle at Stuttgarter Strasse 10 in Stuttgart-Feuerbach.

In March 2020 the Friday night meeting switched to an online format due to the COVID-19 pandemic. At present, English speaking Al-Anon members of various nationalities attend the meetings of the Courage to Change group.