Karen, Welcome! Do you mean a women's AA group? If so, if you have other woman who are interested in a women's group go for it. The only suggestion I would have is keep going to the regular AA meetings also, because you hear things, and get insight from a mixed group that you won't get from just a women's only group. Find a place , a date, and a time...a big book and you have a meeting.
Meetings, meetings, meetings, that is one of the things that has kept me sober 20 years. Keep coming here, we are a great group of people.
Karen, I don't know of any women's groups that have web sites but I will do some research for you. I'm sure there are some people here who live in bigger cities who have actually know of such groups. I will check in the city that is 100 miles from me. I know they have a men's group, did have a women's group? They have groups that are predominatly for hispanics, blacks, gays, native american, but I still think we need to come together for the good of the fellowship.
We will always meet opposition when we try something new and different, that doesn't mean it is wrong or not worth trying.
Welcome...it's great to have you here. In response to your question...I am not a fan of gender-specific meetings. It seems to set us up into thinking that we,as women, are different than men alcoholics and that they, the men, just can't understand. It makes us unique from them. This is only my opinion, of course.
Early in sobriety I also thought it would be great to have a women's meeting, a place to go where I didn't have to deal with all the men and their BS. My sponsor and I spent many hours on this subject. What I finally came to realize was that I was trying to avoid my fear by avoiding certain people, men in general, because of my past behaviour. It was only by facing that fear in a healthy way...by being able to share in a meeting with men around, by beginning to see men as human beings and not as means of some sort of gratification, by forming friendships with men in the program....that I was able to recover from that fear.
In addition to that, some of the best part of my sobriety has come from an 80 yr old man with 30 yrs of sobriety. He always said the one thing that kept me coming back. I would have missed that if i had been attending women's meetings.
Works both ways, Cheri...I think. My sponsor specifically sent me to a womens meeting in early sobriety. I had some massive trust issues as a a result of my parents abandonment. I was terrified of both men and women for very different reasons, and my sponsor insisted I need to allow the 'sisterhood' to mother me, in order to find my place in things.
I was horrified at the thought of a room full of wingeing women, probably sitting around knitting! lol. When I arrived one was knitting but there wasn't much wingeing. Slowly over time, I came to accept myself as an alkie and as a woman. Just learning to be with women, listen to them and recognise a womans strength and the mother in all of us was important to me and my recovery.
I had left a marriage to another violent alkie, and in early sobriety it really haunted me. He hunted me for a long time. I would sit in mixed meetings really nervous, expecting him to walk in on the pretense he wanted help, and steal from me what little peace I'd found. Some guys who later became good friends in the fellow ship, had actually made me physically jump when they walked in (they had similar hair to his, physiques or tattoos). One particular guy had me bawling when I first saw him, and it is how we met, because he was compassionate enough to understand his presence had disturbed me enormously. It is hard to explain...the fear.
So the womens meeting was important to me. It was a place to shed my fear. Very early in the peace, a guy arrived to object to its operation. He made a bit of a song and dance, saying that it was wrong to segregate and that if he was refused access it would be against AA traditions / concepts etc. I watched the women handle him calmly. I saw them stand up for what they believed in without crushing or demeaning him. They quietly refused to begin the meeting in his presence and encouraged him with meeting and phone lists, and a lady offered to sit with him in the church if he needed another member to share with. I needed to see that, I think. I have never forgotten it.
It was also the only place I felt truly free to share on my promiscuity and mistreatment from and of men, and sometimes I just plain needed to let those thoughts out in an understanding place. The reason I didn't like myself was because of things I'd done when drinking. Personally I think its foolish to stand in a room full of men and shares on that kind of stuff... and quite honestly I have seen many well meaning young girls do this, and then complain that they are being 13 stepped as a result.
In regard to the original question...I don't think there is any special guidelines for setting up a womens meeting. I think they operate in exactly the same way as any other meeting. They simply list themselves as Women Only on the meetings list, and I would imagine the founders would visit as many other meetings as possible to let people know there is a womens meeting available. I often used to share on it at other meetings - especially when I saw young girls doing what I explained above. I also often heard men recommend the Womens Meeting to newcomer girls at times...so I don't think it was objected to by the majority. Those that were aware of it, whether they understood why it existed or not, tended to mention it in case it may be useful.
It was very helpful to me, and my sponsor suggested I commit to that one meeting for a year. I flitted about to other meetings but I kept my commitment to that one. I remained with the group for 5 years , and began adding to it with commitments to other groups after my first year, when life began to get a bit more organised.
Another benefit in later sobriety...was that it was a meeting I could go to without my partner who I met in AA. It required no discussion, or waiting around for him...lol...I could just go and the meeting provided that little 'space' in the whole AA scheme of things that I think maybe we all need sometimes.
Nic I am of the same opinion as yourself. And yes Rose some thing different is a hard concept to most of us.
I did find an article a about special composition groups. you know for the blind the hearing impaired the homosexual people the professionals etc. And of course women's groups and apparently the women's groups have been around since 1941 in Cleveland Ohio and there was a national convention for women in February 1964 for women. So I guess whether every one agrees with these kind of groups the point is that many alcoholics do believe in them. And they believe in them seriously enough to form these groups and make them work.
I know of women here who if they couldn't come into the program through a women's meeting then it either would have taken them longer or they may not have gotten in at all.
We actually do have one women's meeting but it has a group conscience of men and women I am hoping for a women's group with a group conscience of women.
I guess I can only put it in God's hands and if it His will then there will be no stopping it.
