As much as we are alike, in this fraternaty, we're all a little different too, especially in the way we learn and absorb information. With that said, so are our perceptions of what helped us most when first ariving at an AA meeting or the first few meetings. So, in your opinion, what was the most important thing that you experienced in AA early on? What kept you coming back?
When I first came into the rooms, I was pretty beat up. I was still detoxing, felt like crap, looked like crap, and didn't really want to engage with anything. I knew that I needed to be there, but didn't want to. I looked at the walls and saw the slogans and those big scrolls with the steps on them with scary words, like Sanity, Defects, Amends, Admitting, and God. Just like "How it works" reads, I said to myself how can I go through with this?
The meeting started (discussion) and the chair person began calling on people to speak. I was horrified that the person would call on me. I was stuttering and sweating, and luckily it never happened. After the meeting, people start clumping together talking joyfully and hugging. I stood there for a moment wanting to run and not come back, when a couple of people approached me and welcomed me. They could tell that I was fresh off a binge but were not repulsed. They offered words of encouragement and their phone numbers. I was puzzled because in the not too recent past, many were telling me not to call them again. It was this human contact, and the observation of people, who were obviously sober, that were happy. That's all I wanted, was to be happy and have a few friends. I wanted to be a "nice person".
It was the fellowship that kept me from running long enough to dry out, long enough to make it to a few more meeting, and a few more weeks/months of without drinking, long before I found a sponsor, the steps, the program, God. It was the fellowship that in essense got me sober, sober enough to stick around for the program. Yet, so often especially lately, I hear people basically saying that the meetings are not the program and down playing the importance of the fellowship and I cringe knowing that this gratefully recoverying alcoholic wouldn't be alive without the fellowship. That's my perspective, what' yours?
-- Edited by StPeteDean on Sunday 4th of December 2011 09:34:05 AM
In a short answer the slogan Keep Coming Back. in 07 when my journey began and I could only manage to accumulate a few weeks and then a few months and that slogan was literally what had me go back to another meeting. At first it was almost in defiance, I felt deep down that it was just a stupid saying and they are gonna be sorry because I AM going to go back. I had absolutely nothing left to try and I wanted some more sobriety. I learned that I was always welcome. But now I know that I was not ready to see or feel the fellowship. And I could not believe in myself enough to do the steps alone, even with the meetings. I also had a deep down belief that although there is a God He is NOT going to be helping me. Still suffering from that uniqueness I believed I had just been too rotten a daughter, mother, wife, person. It was not until I moved to northern Ontario that I opened up enough to experience the Fellowship and I believe that, along with my belief that my HP not only can but will help me, is going to be the tool that will keep me alive. The fellowship has given me the belief that I can do this. The fellowship has given me ladies to sit with me when my Mom was critically ill and I was too numb to remember my tools. The fellowship gave me, most importantly, time to stay and learn and believe in a Higher Power that cares about me and will help me. I have heard people in recovery who do not go to meeting say negative things about attending too many meetings and there is no need. I have also heard that God alone is all you need. That may be fine for them but I am one person who would not be sober today without the fellowship as well. People go to church on Sundays because they want to mingle with other people with the same beliefs. I go to meetings and coffees and dinners with AA members because I want to mingle with other people who share the same beliefs as I do. It is also why I view this forum several times a day
-- Edited by SeekingSerenity on Sunday 4th of December 2011 09:56:02 AM
What kept me coming back was this odd, foreign sensation of being "home". I couldn't really explain it. At the time, many people seemed so different from me and the conversations were about a Higher Power I had been running from for years and yet, I felt I was right where I was supposed to be...and I still do. )
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I think there's an invisible principle of living...if we believe we're guided through every step of our lives, we are. Its a lovely sight, watching it work.
thank you, Dean, wonderful topic. being a fear based drinker/person, i got to the point where i was afraid to get another DUI. the court sent me to AA and it was the courts that kept me going to AA meetings. when i got the last DUI, the program and God slipped from my brain into my heart.... i was happy and smiling in the back of the Highway Patrol car. i had finally gotten to the point where i wanted sobriety more than anything else in the world. it was the AA meetings that i had attended that showed me i could be happy in any circumstance as long as i was doing the next right thing for my sobriety. i was then able to follow my sponsors advice and found out i loved the fellowship of my home group. something about the meetings and sharing replaced my fear with love. what Vixen said about the feeling of being home is so true for me. even at new meetings, i feel at home. having the fellowship of people who know me and still love and support me through wonderful and terrible times is what keeps me coming back. now that i have a couple of years of 24 hours i am there for the newcomer. i still get blessed when i can look other recovering alcoholics in the eye and smile, no words needed. i am no longer afraid of what they might see. through the meetings (and Big Book) God has levelled out my playing field, i no longer feel disadvantaged. Thank you for letting me share. jj/sheila
I had no idea how to live life. I had no idea how to be a grown up and take care of myself. I had no idea how to be responsible and solve problems without whining and running to a bottle. When I got to AA, I saw people who had been where I had been. They were warm and reached out to me. For the first time, I felt like maybe I could grow up, get sober, and connect with others in a meaningful way.
Mark
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Keep coming back. It works if you work it. So work it. You're worth it!
The meetings may not be the program, but they're what kept me around long enough to start working the program. The fact that there are 700 meetings a week in my city, full of people from completely different walks of life, with different stories, all staying sober, made me believe that if AA worked for ALL THESE PEOPLE then the odds were pretty good it would work for me too, if I just did what they did and listened to what they said.
I relate very closely to Mark's statement of condition...I didn't know and didn't know that I didn't know. I didn't know if I had questions and concerns and I didn't know if I should have questions and concerns. What I did know was that the people in the rooms were non-threatening and scareily inviting and I didn't know I was fear-based like jj. They just kept the light on and the door open and I didn't feel like staying any where or going any where to drink anymore; plus it was an hour or hour and a half of reprieve from being with the crazy person I lived my life with...you guessed it me. Time became most important and I continued to take time to make time and do time in the program which I let entertain my curiosity until piece by peace I came to understand that God can and will if God was sought and that God came with huge tools, many of them graceful loving people willing to help me get a life worth living.
Acceptance. I was finally home. No matter how many times I relapsed, no matter what kind of mood I was in when I walked in...I was home. My birth family didn't accept and love me the way We do. My wife doesn't, either. Nor my kids. We are veterans of the same war. That's what keeps me coming back.
It was fear that brought me in the door, that and a slip from my outpatient group treatment I needed signed. These things kept me "around AA" for a while, but not involved. At first I listened and tried to find similarities, but I only heard differences. After a while I convinced myself that maybe I really didn't have a problem, and decided I could control myself. I don't need to tell you how that worked out. I had a sponsor at the time, but she was a sponsor in name only. I could only find one other phone number, that of a woman who had 20 years. I called her, desperate. She listened to me, told me I needed to go back to my homegroup and tell them what I did. So I crawled back, defeated and broken and told them what I had done. They welcomed me. They reassured me that I never had to feel that way again, provided I follow a few suggestions. So I got a sponsor, started working the steps, and became a part of my homegroup. They loved me when I couldn't love myself, and if it were not for them, their freely giving me their experience, strength and most of all, hope, I do not know where I would be today. I just became a sponsor for the first time, and I am a bit scared, but I know that as long as I follow the instructions as they are written in the BB, God will take care of the rest. This I have learned through the fellowship that is AA. Peace
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I asked God for all things that I may enjoy life. He gave me life so that I may enjoy all things.
Yet, so often especially lately, I hear people basically saying that the meetings are not the program and down playing the importance of the fellowship and I cringe knowing that this gratefully recoverying alcoholic wouldn't be alive without the fellowship. That's my perspective, what' yours?
-- Edited by StPeteDean on Sunday 4th of December 2011 09:34:05 AM
Hi Dean,
Good subject to bring up. Yes, meetings are not the whole program and you can't just do meetings, but for me and the people I sponsor they are a important part of working the steps.
3d step, getting into service and out of self centerness, calling others and answering when they call you.
12th step, carry the message to the alcoholic who still suffers, carry the message and making sure the doors are open and people are there as they where when I arrived.
Not at meetings= back into self for me.
I didn't go to treatment, so all I had was the meetings and no other tools, I got some hope, because I was pretty sure you folks where like me after hearing some stories. People gave me some words of encouragement and a few listened to my crazy rambling.
Pg 152
We have shown how we got out from under. You say, "Yes, I'm willing. But am I to be consigned to a life where I shall be stupid, boring and glum, like some righteous people I see? I know I must get along without liquor, but how can I? Have you a sufficient substitute?"
Yes, there is a substitute and it is vastly more than that. It is a fellowship in Alcoholics Anonymous. There you will find release from care, boredom and worry. Your imagination will be fired. Life will mean something at last. The most satisfactory years of your existence lie ahead. Thus we find the fellowship, and so will you.
"How is that to come about?" you ask. "Where am I to find these people?"
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Rob
"There ain't no Coupe DeVille hiding in the bottom of a Cracker Jack Box."
The fellowship thing-my thinking about myself and others was so distorted and I definitely suffered from terminal uniqueness. I hated the social aspect and was really afraid to be in a group.
After some thought about the last 2.5 years I'd say that it is the most important thing tho, here's why:
Coming to meetings and hearing the promises every day: I wanted those things with all my heart and I was told "There is a Solution". Listening to other alcoholics share their ESH is exactly how I came to understand that I am just another alcoholic, and the main thing is that we are all powerless over the drink. This is how it was reinforced that despite any outward appearances, we all have a common problem. I got this from listening at meetings.
Seeing how it works for others, that gave me hope that no matter how hard, I could stay sober too. I had to do the steps with a sponsor, yes absolutely. My inspiration was absolutely hearing others share in meetings.
This is why when I take a medallion it's not necessarily for me, it's to show the newcomer that it works, just as in the beginning, when Bill and Bob shared their common problem.
Today the fellowship is how I continue to learn how to live sober. That's where I learn about love and a great way to practice the 12th. Yes, the fellowship in meetings is crucial. It's not the only thing, but it is a crucial thing.
First, of course, without a doubt is fellowship, but as you say yourself in another thread, comes a day when not picking up a drink doesn't cut it any more, either because you are ready to stick a gun in your mouth, or you have a group of well wishers perfectly willing to do it for you, hence "meetings aren't the program"
Before they let you fly a plane, they stick you in a classroom (meetings) after awhile, learning some basics you get to fly with an instructor (working the steps) after you have completed the course you get to fly solo (living life on life's terms) and then since this whole thing is a "pay it forward deal" pretty soon -you- become an instructor (sponsoring others)
so in learning how to fly a plane, what is the most important?
all of it, including the solo time
that also includes the giving back part (sponsoring) since without that, there would be no "flight school"
Fish/bicycle/climbing trees
saying any -one- of those things is more important then any other is like listening to a discussion about what is more important for life, heart, lungs, blood, or arteries/veins, a good case could be made for all of them but the truth is without all four working in conjunction none of it works, if a social setting alone could have kept me sober I'd have moved to Las Vegas and hung out in whorehouses...had a lot less drama to deal with
-- Edited by LinBabaAgo-go on Thursday 8th of December 2011 02:11:52 AM
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Light a man a fire and he's warm for a night, set a man on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life
These things kept me "around AA" for a while, but not involved. At first I listened and tried to find similarities, but I only heard differences. After a while I convinced myself that maybe I really didn't have a problem, and decided I could control myself. I don't need to tell you how that worked out. I had a sponsor at the time, but she was a sponsor in name only. I could only find one other phone number, that of a woman who had 20 years. I called her, desperate. She listened to me, told me I needed to go back to my homegroup and tell them what I did. So I crawled back, defeated and broken and told them what I had done. They welcomed me. They reassured me that I never had to feel that way again, provided I follow a few suggestions. So I got a sponsor, started working the steps, and became a part of my homegroup. They loved me when I couldn't love myself, and if it were not for them, their freely giving me their experience, strength and most of all, hope, I do not know where I would be today. I just became a sponsor for the first time, and I am a bit scared, but I know that as long as I follow the instructions as they are written in the BB, God will take care of the rest. This I have learned through the fellowship that is AA. Peace