My wife and I are looking to start a discussion group for middle-timers/old-timers. Has anyone been to a meeting like this and can lend any guidance on format of the meeting?
Thanks!
DCal
-- Edited by DCal on Wednesday 11th of August 2010 06:14:35 PM
I'm not sure how well that would work. From my own experience, I heard a newcomer share in a meeting that she had attempted to go to an AA meeting that was a step study, and one of the members said, "This is a step study, it's not for newcomers." She got very angry, picked up the welcome mat and threw it inside the door saying "This shouldn't be out here, not everyone is welcome." Someone else said to her at the meeting she ended up going to (fortunately she realized she had other options), "I don't know what that was but it wasn't an AA meeting." You may have a good reason for wanting to have a discussion group for middle-timers and old-timers, and you're free to put one together on your own and just invite those you want - just remember Tradition 3, if it's a private meeting then don't list it in a schedule, consider having it at a private residence, and recognize that it's not a traditional AA meeting if all who wish to recover are not welcome.
Nicely put Glen. There is a group not far from here that is very similar. Their policy is less than 5 years, and your still a new comer. They don't allow new comers at their meetings. So sad that they miss out on the MOST IMPORTANT person in the meetings...the new comer. according to what I hear EVERY TIME I go to a meeting, the only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. It would seem than that these people took it upon themselves to change the program to suit their own agenda (pride and selfishness???). They call themselves AA. I won't consider that AA, yet they are published on the meeting schedule.
I can't imagine going to the same meeting and hearing the same things and stories from the same people over and over again. I like the reminder of how it really is out there. I need to remember the pain and suffering, and someone who's been apart from that pain for that many years can't remind me as well as the one who just hit bottom and is hurting like hell.
At 34 years of sobriety the meetings are not for me. I stay sober by praying to God, working the steps on a daily basis and by helping other alcoholics achieve sobriety. Where do I find those others to help? I don't catch them walking down the streets, I see them in AA meetings. That is why I am a regular meeting maker today. To give hope to the newcomer that if the AA program worked for me it might work for them. I got that hope at my first meeting and am now trying to pay it back by giving the same hope to other newcomers.
If you want to start a social club of middle timers and oldtimers go for it. If the program laid out in the first 164 pages of the big book has been rigorously followed then you no longer need meetings. However be sure to attend them anyway and support the newcomers as your were once supported, they may one day be our sponsors.
Larry, --------------- We get a *daily* reprieve, based on what we do *today* for our recovery
-- Edited by Larry_H on Thursday 12th of August 2010 04:54:36 PM
When I was several months sober, I went with a friend to a meeting at a local therapist's office. I believe they paid rent for the room, so it was all in accordance with AA traditions. But the reason I never went back to the meeting was that there were only a couple of people (out of the twenty or so that were there) who had more sobriety than I did. Most had a few weeks to a couple of months. The longer-sober attendees had many years, but I didn't feel like I got much out of the meeting.
I don't like beginner's meetings--my favorite meetings have a good mix of people from a day (or even a few hours) to decades of sobriety.
Still, special-purpose groups (as long as they don't call themselves AA groups) can be valuable. I used to go to one that alternated AA and Al-Anon speakers/readings every other week. There were couples and people without partners who came on a regular basis. It gave everyone a good insight into the other program and a chance to see things from the other perspective. But it was on neither the AA nor the Al-Anon meeting list.
My homegroup reads the 12& 12 and we discuss. It is totally awesome. People think the Traditions are boring, but when you read of some of the escapades and familiar "thinking" that went on in the early days, which made it neccesary to create the Traditions, you really learn a whole hell of a lot about yourself and sobriety in general, we have found.
Enjoy! I am a 'starting member" of a meeting that is 4 months old and it is awesome to be a part of that and watching it grow every week.
:o)
__________________
~Your Higher Power has not given you a longing to do that which you have no ability to do.
p.s.... in lieu of reading "How it Works", we read a passage from More About Alcoholism, to remind us that we are in the grip of a deadly disease, and that we need AA to survive.
__________________
~Your Higher Power has not given you a longing to do that which you have no ability to do.
My understanding is that the newcomer and service along with spirituality is the AA thing. I don't understand the concept of a meeting that does not allow newcomers. I go to several meetings that are mostly made of of old-timers and a few others in between as well as a sprinkling of newcomers. Things are kept fresh through good chairpeople with dynamic topics who call on people. The other is a focused step study so that the meeting isn't always about #1. I love hearing what sobriety is for someone with 25+ years. I think we both have a lot to offer each other.
When I walk into a meeting that is out of my comfort zone I remind myself that we are folks that would normally not mix. There's a reason good meetings contain people at different places with the program. My fave old geezer(she laughs at this, blessed to be a geezer now instead of dead!) always says she was told that she needed to be at meetings not just for herself, but more importantly, to be there for someone else. I hope to give back all that I've been given some day too.
I agree that people need to talk/meet with others of similiar situations to get appropriate support. Special groups meet important needs; however I am told that a man might be ok to stay at a women's meeting and my sponsor says straight but not narrows are welcome at gay AA meetings.
Those are my thoughts for today. Thank you for my sobriety, and for being here.
Every Monday night in my old homegroup (before I moved across the country), in one room there would be a beginner's meeting for those with under 1 year of sobriety. Newcomers were strongly encouraged, but not required, to attend that meeting, in which the only alcoholic with more than a year of sobriety was the one chairing it. In another room at the same time would be "regular" closed discussion meeting. So usually everyone in the regular meeting had at least one year of sobriety. I thought it worked well.
I really think a mix of sobriety ages helps. The newcomers benefit from the example of the experienced people, and (I assume) the old-timers get opportunities to sponsor and be reminded of all the reasons NOT to go back.
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Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and unto God that which is God's.
