Thinking of joining AA

Hey everybody! Hope ur day has been pleasant like blooming flowers. But ever since turning 21 drinking has been a problem at night and i want to do something about it. A friend told me to try AA, that its a good place to meet people who have challenges. I just want to know waht you all think from ur experience cause drinking has taken over my nights.

I had a good experience at AA.

If I had to have schizophrenia, it is good I also had alcoholism because the treatment I got at AA was helpful for me.

I wouldn’t advise telling everyone at AA that one uses psych medication because it is a diverse crowd, and it is better not to be too different at AA. It is better to concentrate on the thing that binds people to AA: the desire to stay free of alcohol.

Jayster

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Meetings are free. There are many you may relate to. It is spirituality based. Give it a try. Nothing to lose @Kazuma. PM me for more info.

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Go for it. I’ve been to AA too. Just keep your focus on your alcohol abuse and things involving alcohol. They don’t need to know if you like to have odd pairs of socks or anything other personal.

We read the rules before every meeting and the rules say, keep your part of the talk to your desire to quit alcohol.

In my group you are welcome when you are hangover but you can’t talk. If you are sober you are allowed to talk. Check up you group. What rules are there?

It’s kept me sober for 24 years and counting. No complaints.

Pix.

I was never an alcoholic but I was a drug addict who initially got clean in AA. Later I joined CA and NA. I drank often but crack was my big problem. I got clean in 1990. For the first 5 years in the programs I went to 5 or 6 meetings a week. In my twenty six years in the programs I have been to over a 1000 meetings.

I liked most meetings, I didn’t talk very much to anyone but I was content to sit in the room full of people and listen to the speakers. After a couple of years I loosened up and I would share in front of the entire group of 10,15 or 30 people. After the meetings I tried to talk to people and I was friendly with a few people. Most of the people were cool, no one picked on me or gave me a hard time.

I will give you one piece of advice. Most meetings are structered the same way and have a similar routine but every meeting is different, every meeting has it’s own personality and it’s own atmosphere. If you decide to go to a meeting and you don’t like it for some reason or you feel uncomfortable or you don’t like the people, do not get discouraged and give up. Try other meetings, chances are that if you try enough you will find one you like.

For your first few meetings you can just sit and listen and you don’t have to talk until you kind of see how things are run and you get comfortable. Meetings ate pretty informal.

Anyway, obviously I can’t tell you everything here, whole books are written about AA. If you are serious about quitting and you are seriously interested in joining AA, the first thing I would do is get a copy of the basic text of AA, fondly called by AA followers"The Big Book" and read it cover to cover. It gives the history of AA including how it began, it explains alcoholism and it explains how the program works.

Lastly, it has personal stories by recovering alcoholics. I think getting the book is an excellent start and I think you will learn a lot from reading it and you will probably enjoy reading it. Anyway, the vast majority of my 26 years in and AA, CA, and NA was a positive experience. I have mostly positive things to say about it.

I have seen quite a few mentally ill people in meetings and I have never seen any stigmatized or hassled or singled out for abuse by other members. In my experience I find people to very tolerant of each other in meetings. If you go to enough meetings you will find that many members have been in psyche wards themselves.