I went to the Wolfe Street Center for an AA meeting and ran into the Executive Director. I used to volunteer there before they shut down due to covid-19. I told the Executive Director I no longer had a car, and my arthritis has gotten worse, making it difficult to walk. Well she asked me if there was anything she could do to help.
Between my psychiatric care provider, church, and AA she was the only one to offer help. I’m somewhat disillusioned with church. They didn’t offer to help.
Anyway, it’s nice to know where your friends really are.
I know the feeling of being disillusioned with people. I didn’t get help from anyone when I really needed it and that’s left a bad taste. It’s actually made me pretty selfish now if I’m honest.
Yeah, that’s a big reason I initially got clean and stayed clean. It was the people in AA who were friendly, supportive, and they may even have liked me but they shared their stories and experience freely.
There’s an AA saying: “To keep what we got, we got to give it away”. It means when we needed it most the members of AA told us what worked for them, and sharing their stories and strength and experience is how we keep clean and sober. We keep clean by helping the struggling addict or alcoholic and telling what worked for us.
When I went to my first meetings, if everybody was unfriendly and selfish and just out for themselves I might not have stayed. But the people were so cool and nice and truly wanted to help each other.
A typical meeting was having the guy who chaired it and the speaker. The speaker talks for 15 minutes and then opens the meeting to anyone who wants to talk or an alternative is for the speaker to call on people. They like to keep the sharing to just a few minutes and people can get up and comment on whatever someone else said or just share their story or any other topic related to recovery.
That’s the basics of recovery: listening and sharing.
I just don’t see how you can help each other if you can’t talk about each other’s problems. Sharing on a similar topic sounds like it might help. The rules for the group I went to were heavy and discouraging to me. We were told not to double share but my shares are usually 5-10 minutes or less, then I remember something else I wanted to talk about but can’t share due to the rules. Then a woman in our group starts sharing and goes on for 45 freaking minutes! And everyone applauds her and I’m like wow are you serious.
I think going to NA for marijuana isn’t a good idea because their problems are just out of my league. I like the idea of having a sponsor you can call when you get cravings though. I just don’t feel like a good fit for those programs because they demand absolute lifelong sobriety or you lose your chip. Me, I might have a drink at a new year’s party or something and not want to give up my lifetime achievement just for that.
I don’t like criticizing the programs like this though because so many people have seen huge benefits from being in them. I really admire those people.
Sure, people are different and the format and rules aren’t going to please everybody across the board. There’s open dissension between members sometimes but I have to say, after years of attending meetings, the spirit and atmosphere of most meetings is good.
I mean we’re addicts and alcoholics; when we were using, following rules and being tolerant and open-minded was not our strong suit. And some people carry that attitude into meetings. So yeah, it’s a miracle that such diverse people can even sit together in one room and follow some of the basic rules.