Do any of you refer to this board in your everyday life, with your family or friends out side of AA, or in?
I have a few - maybe 4 times. A couple times to my sponsor - talking about how online support seems like it could really be something younger ones sobering up could latch onto. She's around 50 I think... she simply said she doesn't want to think about the future, and what kinds of technology lies ahead for the world. She lives in today. I liked that, and needed to hear it, but I love to dream of the future as far as techy stuff goes. I've always been a sucker for movies and books like that. I loved all the back to the future movies, and giggle when I notice the super cool futuristic stuff coming to be lately. Sci fi and what's to come in the real world combined... I dig it... a lot. Maybe escaping into fantasies of the future world are just ways for my alcoholic mind to do it's thing, and for today, so long as I don't fret over things, and just enjoy the idea's people are coming up with it's okay? I don't really know yet.
Another instance of referring to this board happened last night with my husband. We were at the grocery store, and I was looking at some bread and stuff. I asked my hubby if he would mind me fixing him lunches that weren't sandwhiches, that I was going to try and avoid wheat. At least for a month or so to see if something I read about was right. I told him to let me know if he wanted bread back, cuz I wouldn't buy it otherwise. He agreed that cutting back was a good idea, and I told him why I thought we might need to cut it out all together to see some real benefits. I explained to him about the crops being modified in the 60's, now foriegn to our bodies, and some of the other details I could remember about it. He is a crop guy - Agriculture is his life. He works, plays and lives it. He told me that fact was wrong, and not to believe everything I read about. To remember that everyone's just trying to sell you something.
I agreed that to be true, but because this was a friend of mine who inspired me, I was a bit more apt to believe it, and look into it. I pointed to the natural section of the food store, and reminded him that I certainly don't give into ALL that stuff... I have to enjoy life some too... I couldn't possibly get it all perfect, and I would worry myself to death literally by trying I thought.
He thought that was different, if it was a friend who told me about this, was doing it and showed me pictures of it working. So he stopped dead in the isle, turned his head toward mine, and said: "well... which friend?" With a hesitation, I said... well... it's a friend on MIP.
Then I realized, I really do consider you people on here my friends. But it's SOOOOOOooo strange to say! I have never met you. I don't even know what you look like really... I could pass you by on the street and not even know it!!! I know nothing about you, yet at the same time, I know more about you than I do most of the friends I've had for years!
He didn't really blink at it, and I decided not to let it rattle around in my head either - at least yesterday - I decided what he thought about that was none of my business. But here I am, again, thinking about it.
So in hopes to feel a bit more normal - do you ever refer to people on this board in your "other life"? And if so, do you feel like we're really friends?
On a side note - I'm not at all desperate for friends. I've rekindled ALL of my old circle of stay at home mom girlfriends from before my drinking got really bad during the last year. I have a lot of new girlfriends in AA now. I consider my sponsor to be my friend too. I have much better relations with all my family, and see them quite often, or at least talk. I don't feel like my life is empty anymore... in fact, I have to pull in the reigns to keep balance for myself, and my kids and husband now!
Thanks in advance for your thoughts,
Tasha
P.s. some of you that I messaged about this replied with some really great answers, and I hope you copy and paste your reply here : )
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Thanks for everything. Peace and Love on your journey.
What? There were others???? Ok, that's a joke. I've been around awhile, but I'm still not even remotely 'well'. Here was my perspective on this topic earlier today when we spoke.
Hi Tasha, I have mentioned it to a few people. In fact, I discovered this board by way of a girlfriend in AA here in my tiny town. For me, the board represents a wider scope of people than are here in my day to day life. Another thing about this board is the blatant privacy simply because it is a cyber community. I do recognize the limits of it; I only know folks by what they share here, and not how they are in their walk in the outside world. There's two sides to this. They can come here and say just the right thing and sound spot on all the time because it's a forum, and how will we know the difference? On the other hand, due to its being cyber, people can be brutally honest without fear of their "look good" because after all, we don't have dinner with them, or see them in person, right? So it's easier to make oneself vulnerable. So I suppose, in my mind, we're straddling two different worlds, the one of cyber friends and the one our feet are on, both of which are very valuable. Over the years, I have made some awesome cyber friends that I would turn to in a hot minute. Although not on this forum, I have also met some real stinkers, hahaha!
I think this is a wonderful place for newcomers to discover, who may be a bit afraid of going to their first meeting, and this gives them an idea of what it's like, what people in AA are striving for, so that they don't feel so alone. It's also a great place for us to come for support and to share our support when we're feeling a need and no meeting's around (we have only two meetings a week here, and there is only one of them I'm comfy in, but during my beginning years in AA I was in a larger area so hit meetings every night. Small town living!)
Another cool thing is the huge variety of folks we get on the board, and they all have this wide variety of experiences and knowledge. I've learned a ton of stuff here I wouldn't learn in just meetings, because the structure is so different. I've got friends that are 'cyber' that I met years and years ago, and we are still friends, we exchange cards or gifts, whatever. So I don't undervalue the impact and closeness this forum can provide. And like I said, because we are 'faceless' here, many of us can be far more honest on here than we will be in a face to face encounter (and the flip side of that is, more full of it and just talking it but not walking it). So I try to keep all of that in mind. I've gotten close to people here that eventually drifted away and I rarely hear from them. Some live so far away that it's unlikely I'll ever see them again. It's the nature of the beast, I guess.
But no, I don't think it's odd to feel safe here, to find friends here, and to occassionaly refer to what I hear here in my 'skin life'. I've made valuable friendships via the cyber world, and strong attachments. But I'm always aware that it is what it is-- a forum. It can't take the place of my real world, but it sure does enhance it.
In We Agnostics ( I think) the book talks about God being as real as the feeling we have for a friend, so to me, feeling friendship is part of the internal condition. When I think about the desolation that was my life when I came to AA and what happened from there I see first that people held out the hand of friendship to me.
Not only did they sit and listen, help me find God through the steps, but they included me in their group, making it my group. They let me help, they gave me opportunities to be of service, they taught me about giving, and how to get away from self. They made me feel wanted and needed, they helped drive away that feeling of self pity and uselessness, they helped give my life new meaning. These are true acts of friendship that demand nothing in return.
Ive been away a while, yet I received some messages from some folks on this site letting me know I had been missed. That is such a privilage, a true act of friendship. If any of the folks on this board happened to visit my town, or our paths crossed some other way, I would be as pleased to see them and welcome them to my home as if they had been f2f friends. So absolutely yes, I feel I have friends here.
I do consider you all friends, this kind of my online homegroup. It's kind of the same with all the regular personalities, plus the occasional's just like the regular meetings, it's great to see the new people grow, going through the same life adjustments we all do and then see the amazing tranformation that happens.
Like you, I'm really not one of these cyber freaks who's only friends and life is online. I am a avid follower of MMA (mixed martial arts), and like to follow the news online. I started post/reading on a MMA message board, as I really don't have a lot of friends who follow the sport. I never really connected well with all the mostly 20-somethings. One day while writing a post I got a little frustrated with some of the things said, and I realized that my being on that little positive impact for myself or anyone else. I figured there might be a AA message board and I somehow stumbled on MIP and I have really enjoyed it ever since.
It has been a good tool for me to learn some new things, get different perspectives, and keep my head in the right place. It is good 12th step work that I can do any time of the day helping me to stay out of self. There are many people that we all help who we don't even know, those who are lerking but too shy to come online, some may be active drinkers others in AA.
I do mention this site and send the link to others who might be interested and sponcee's (my wife also!), although none of them stuck around for more than a few posts.
I mention this forum when sharing at meetings, and have used some of the topics presented here when I chair meetings. I actually did meet Roger (Pappy) for dinner a couple weeks ago when driving back from south GA, he lives about 1 hour away from me. I know you all will find this hard to believe...he is a super nice guy with a interesting story and he seems very dedicated to AA.
You will surely meet some of us as you trudge the road of happy destiny!!
Keep the faith, Rob
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Rob
"There ain't no Coupe DeVille hiding in the bottom of a Cracker Jack Box."
My involvement in socializing on line dates from around the time I got sober, although 99.5% of the on-line involvement I've had has been non-AA related. I've been working with computers since before there was a www, before there was facebook, before there was AOL, before there was Compuserve, before there was a PC, or even an Apple 1 or a Trash-80. I didn't actually own a computer until 1982, but I really didn't own one I could actually use for anything besides waste my time playing games until late 1988. This was just a couple of months before I got sober, in my last months of drinking. I had long been unsatisfied with my job, and was actively seeking a new one - as well as cultivating some prospects for doing some paying work on my own, so having my own usable computer was the beginning of all of that. When I found myself newly sober a couple months later, it didn't exactly turn me into a morning person. I was still up till 1, 2 am most every night but functioning instead of drunk on my ass or passed out, so I did a LOT of stuff with the computer, including discovering the fledgling online communities of bulleting boards, Compuserve, etc.
By the time I got divorced and found myself with a ton of freedom, I was 100% self employed and I had friends all over the world - most of whom I had never met. So I did something unusual... I started taking actual vacations, and traveling... to shows, conventions, etc. and began to meet in person some of the people I had known only as pixels on the screen for some years. Of course there were a bunch of AA and 12-step related things on line, but most of them lacked the critical mass to really keep going. I remember running a couple of online text/chat type meetings, and I was lucky if two people showed up and even luckier if they participated at all.
So fast forward to the 21st century, when "online social networks" are a common household word, no longer something you have to explain - and there IS critical mass now among people of almost any stripe. Any interest, any hobby, any occupation, any passion, and yes any disease, you can find an online community full of active participation.
I think I joined MIP in 2006. Not sure, I'd have to check my history. I believe I started in Alanon first. I was active at the time with Alanon but could only make it to one meeting a week or so, and I found initially the MIP Alanon community was a lot more active. I eventually joined the AA section as well, and for the past couple years I've been more active in AA than Alanon. Really just depends on what's going on in life.
Anyway a roundabout way to get to the subject of the thread but... truthfully, nobody in my real-life knows that I am a member here. Not even anybody in AA. I've occasionally mentioned doing online AA stuff, but never identified the site specifically. If anyone who knows me very will in AA were to come across my posts on here, they'd probably figure out who I am fairly quickly if not from my handle from my style of babbling which is not all that different from how I am in person. Of all the people I've met face to face after years on line, few have ever been surprised - I'm pretty much the same personality. But this place seems like a little anonymous-within-anonymous safe place to vent or share or whatever. I haven't met anybody from here in person, at least not that I know of. I do travel and go to meetings in other towns - and a couple of times in other countries. But I haven't traveled as much lately, in part because these annoying little health issues keep eating up both my money and vacation time. But I suppose sooner or later, it will happen.
I think the online medium is good for a person like me because it lets me get to know people pretty well before they have to put up with me face to face Forum posts and emails can be skimmed, or saved and read later at a more convenient time. It eliminates the responsibility of having to remember things a person tells you face to face, I can go back and check. How many times do you tell a story - or hear a story - and forget who you told it to, or who told it to you? I can go back into my archives and refresh my memory and I don't seem quite so forgetful and inept face to face trying to remember a face to a name and is this the guy from California or Washingting or North Carolina or what. One guy I knew, I was sure he was Canadian... he's from Georgia. I thought he was Canadian because his last name is the name of a city in Canada... LOL. So using this medium I come across as being a more knowledgable, amicable, considerate guy than if I'm left to only my own mental devices. And it's all in the timing. Sometimes I just don't feel like having a deep conversation with so-and-so. Email lets me wait until I do, and I can give that person due consideration and a thoughtful reply, instead of trying to carry on an interaction in person when my mind may be on other things. I've always enjoyed people and conversation, but sometimes now when I go to a convention, I just need to go escape to my hotel room and have some quiet time. It's a strange feeling to have people actually *want* to meet me and talk to me.. LOL. And even at some of these non-AA gatherings, I hear the equivalent of "keep coming back". It sure beats "don't let the door hit ya in the ass..."
Barisax Still A Night Owl somewhere in the autumn leaves of the midwestern United States...
Forum posts and emails can be skimmed, or saved and read later at a more convenient time. It eliminates the responsibility of having to remember things a person tells you face to face, I can go back and check. How many times do you tell a story - or hear a story - and forget who you told it to, or who told it to you? I can go back into my archives and refresh my memory and I don't seem quite so forgetful and inept face to face trying to remember a face to a name and is this the guy from California or Washingting or North Carolina or what. One guy I knew, I was sure he was Canadian... he's from Georgia. I thought he was Canadian because his last name is the name of a city in Canada... LOL. So using this medium I come across as being a more knowledgable, amicable, considerate guy than if I'm left to only my own mental devices. And it's all in the timing. Sometimes I just don't feel like having a deep conversation with so-and-so. Email lets me wait until I do, and I can give that person due consideration and a thoughtful reply, instead of trying to carry on an interaction in person when my mind may be on other things. I've always enjoyed people and conversation, but sometimes now when I go to a convention, I just need to go escape to my hotel room and have some quiet time. It's a strange feeling to have people actually *want* to meet me and talk to me.. LOL. And even at some of these non-AA gatherings, I hear the equivalent of "keep coming back". It sure beats "don't let the door hit ya in the ass..."