2.6 Meetings Per Week

Tanin · MIP Old Timer

2.6 Meetings Per Week

Pythonpappy · MIP Old Timer

1st of all, I go to as many meetings as it requires, for me to feel part of my home group ...

Right now? ... I routinely go to 3 meetings a week ... ... ... of course there are those that I miss for family reasons on occasion ... I've posted here before that I was perhaps sicker than your average AA'r ... so I averaged 8-10 meetings a week for almost 2 years ... I didn't feel safe otherwise, at that point ... I strongly believe in the 90-in-90 suggestion ... I have seen many more make it by doing the 90-in-90 than those who don't ... It kinda forces one to see that the number one priority in life should be our sobriety ... yes, above that of family and work ... ... ..

Note: When I pick up a new sponsee, I try to do the 90-in-90 with them ... I'm not sure why that is ? ... maybe because I see them as my new 'baby' ??? ... I don't know, I just think it gets them off to a good start ...

Mr_David · MIP Old Timer

Pythonpappy wrote:
1st of all, I go to as many meetings as it requires, for me to feel part of my home group ...

Right now? ... I routinely go to 3 meetings a week ... ... ... of course there are those that I miss for family reasons on occasion ... I've posted here before that I was perhaps sicker than your average AA'r ... so I averaged 8-10 meetings a week for almost 2 years ... I didn't feel safe otherwise, at that point ... I strongly believe in the 90-in-90 suggestion ... I have seen many more make it by doing the 90-in-90 than those who don't ... It kinda forces one to see that the number one priority in life should be our sobriety ... yes, above that of family and work ... ... ..

Note: When I pick up a new sponsee, I try to do the 90-in-90 with them ... I'm not sure why that is ? ... maybe because I see them as my new 'baby' ??? ... I don't know, I just think it gets them off to a good start ...

Well said, Roger. I don't get out much like I used too, but when it comes to meetings, well; I try to make it a priority. I'll just leave it at that. Great information, though..

mike1 · Member

How did they get the .6? Are they leaving early? :) I've noticed I need a meeting every other day to not get squirrelly. I've tried to do less and the results weren't good.

justadrunk · MIP Old Timer

YEAH VIX! So happy for yOU!
Congrats sister!

I like Deans thoughts on getting back into life. I also like my life in AA. I want to be there for the alcoholic still suffering. I meet others to help in meetings. I can only do so much though - before I have to check my motives and ask for guidance from a HP to see if I have balance.

For me right now, it's 3-4 meetings a week. That's me holding myself back to be with my kids and husband who also had a meeting schedule we now work with as a family. He typically goes to 2 meetings per week. We do those nights together so we're home with the kids as a whole family unit as many nights as possible. We typically also go to one speaker meeting together over the weekend as part of our date night. In addition, my home group is Sunday morning. I like having a lot of groups I go to as regularly as possible instead of just one home group. That way, no matter what's going on with kids schedules or sicknesses or whatever... I feel 'at home' when I show up at any of those 4 meetings.

I have this website on my phone, and at this point in my life, it's been a life savor. When I'm stressed during the day - I can say a quick prayer for guidance, and come on here and get out of my head for a couple minutes. I have this to keep me cool headed when I'm doing my home online work, and instead of doing things like shop or surf social sites that sometimes make me 'less healthy' I can now come here and get 'more healthy' during down times. I spend a lot of time just waiting for things to down load or upload - and this is a safe haven that I'm so grateful for. It works for me. This fall I wont be working from home anymore, and I can feel already that I'll be ready to not be living and breathing recovery. It works if you work it.

-- Edited by justadrunk on Sunday 10th of March 2013 02:39:03 PM

SolanoGypsy · Senior Member

I attend one AA meeting per week and I freely confess that this is not as much as I feel I need. This has been influenced by leaving my daughters father who used to watch her during my meetings. (It does get cold here in California and until I get my car out of the shop, I am unwilling to expose her to the elements to get to meetings). However, I do attend one bible based 12 step meeting per week as well as a women's step study in that same fellowship once per week. There is also one women's meeting that I attend in another fellowship once per week. When I am on board with all of the above, I attend four meetings per week; Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

I am temporarily staying with a friend who just celebrated one month clean and so there are times when I definitely feel I could use more meetings. (Come home to me Chevy Blazer!) But I make it a priority to talk to my sponsor every day and to be involved in some aspect of step work at all times. I see it like this; if I'm not growing, I am decaying and if I am not connecting with my fellows, I am isolating.

billyjack · Senior Member

I make around seven a week. I only need three I just dont know which three. On my days off i do two a day. I dont have a quiting time at work so i cant plan meetings during the week. When i did work a regular work week i did seven to ten, book studys, detox and jail meetings. In early sobriety i was not working for a few months and i was told to make every meeting i could so that was four of five a day. I was fortunate to be in vegas where there are a ton of meetings. They say meeting makers make it, thats not always true but one thing i have noticed is that the people who make it for the long haul have made AA the center of their lives and you can count on seeing them at multiple meeting a week. And not just the group therepy meetings, book studys and h&i also.

vixen · MIP Old Timer

Color me average, I attend 2-3 meetings a week. I also meet with my sponsor once a week, read AA literature daily and try to connect with those in my home group by phone. It seems like a good combo for me. I had 18 months clean and sober, by the grace of God, as of yesterday. :)

Pythonpappy · MIP Old Timer

Congrats Vixen, ... ... ...

Way to go girl ... you are in the drivers seat now for sure!!!

2granddaughters · Senior Member

Usually 5-6 meetings a week.

I'm retired now and life is quite comfortable.

I can survive on 2-3 meetings, grow on 4, thrive on 5. It's my choice

All the best.

Bob R

StPeteDean · MIP Old Timer

That stat is probably my monthly average. I get most of my AA interaction here (at least an hour a day), and talking/meeting up with sponsor and AA friends. No excuses, I used to feel guilty about it but it works for me.

RubyTues · MIP Old Timer

Way to go on 18 months, Vixen!

I'd say I'm averaging around 4 meetings a week, sometimes more. This week it has been less because I've been working pretty intensively with my sponsor on step work.

Col · Senior Member

I attend anywhere from 4 to 9 a week. At this point, with me being under a year sober, I feel 4 is too little ( considering I do 2 on days off from work)... But 9 can be too much. Since I dont drive, sometimes the travel time leaves me little time to get anything else done (...excuse haha). I dunno, I'm trying to find the happy medium. I've found that if I go longer than a day between meetings I feel a little lost and bitchy LOL.

StPeteDean · MIP Old Timer

Just for a little clarity. I didn't miss a daily meeting for the first 3.5 years. From there to 10 years I did about 4 a week. At 11 yrs. my teenage son moved in with us and I probably did 2 a week till he left for College 6 years later, which is about the time I found MIP.

vixen · MIP Old Timer

Thanks for the congrats! It's true, life just keeps getting better and better, if you take the steps. :)

chris · Senior Member

First 4 years of sobriety, 5-7 meetings a week. Now 2 a week, works for me.

Fyne Spirit · MIP Old Timer

Interesting thread Tanin.

some of you guys are spoilt in terms of your home group activity. All of our groups hold only one meeting a week. My current "Home group" is the Raumati Big Book Study that meets on a monday night. I never miss a home group meeting provided I'm in the area but at the moment I am away down south for a while. I have always felt that a hme group is very important and I get quite envious when I hear your home groups have several meetings a week. To me that sounds great. I think , in effect we have mostly meetings but not groups, the group really being what we call intergroup. Average size of our groups is probably not more than 10, typical group conscience meeting 3-4, and the faces can change completely from one week to the next. Therefore we provide few opportunities for newcomers to get 'involved" in a structured supported way, it's all very random.

Other than my home group, I attend other meetings as opportunity and time permits. I really enjoy meetings so somtimes I might get to 6 in a week, but then if I am away sailing I might get to 1 in 6 weeks. It doesn't seem to make any difference to my state of mind one way or the other. I long ago realised that it is not the meetings that keep me sober. I can't remember the last time I went to a meeting with a pressing need for support and help or some problem that needed solving.

Through the steps I had a spiritual experience, a psychic change if you will, and that brought a complete change in my motivations for going to meetings. Where once I went to see what I could get out of it, meetings are now an opportunity for me to contribute and try to help my fellow alcoholic. I can also do this directly in person or by phone and I am convinced that it is the willingness to help others that keeps me in fit spiritual condition. I love meetings, I feel great when I attend, but I also experience great rewards working with others in settings other than meetings.

God bless,
MikeH

Tanin · MIP Old Timer

As we can see from the above responses, meeting attendancde frequency varies considerably. From 2.6 meetings a month to 9 meetings a week. And everyone is staying sober and working the program successfully with their own alottment of meetings. How do we do this? Well, it's the program of AA that keeps us sober. Meetings are part of the whole scheme of things--and frequency can be important--but a lot of meetings isn't a clinching factor.

Each individual must evaluate their own needs, abilities and constraints to figure out their meeting schedule. One size does not fit all. Can some AA who goes to one meeting a month believably suggest to another AA (new or old) to go to several meetings a week? Depends. Depends on the program the suggestor is working and whether he/she is/seems sincere.

There is often, it seems to me, knee jerk emphasis on meeting attendance. The obvious example is "do 90 meetings in 90 days." Well, not many people can accomplish this goal. Constraints in the form of work, health, family responsibilities, transportation, etc. always are present. Prescribing 90/90 to a person who can never make that goal sets a member up for failure. In my first 90 days, I failed to make the goal. I felt somewhat bad about that. I felt even worse when I found out that 90/90 is not an AA creation. It is a school of thought that was simply made up by some folks years ago--after misinterpreting what AA said back in the 1950s about meeting attendance frequency.

Fyne Spirit wrote
Interesting thread Tanin.

some of you guys are spoilt in terms of your home group activity. All of our groups hold only one meeting a week. My current "Home group" is the Raumati Big Book Study that meets on a monday night. . . . I get quite envious when I hear your home groups have several meetings a week.

This is a good point, FS. Locality has a HUGE impact on meeting preponderance. Those in large metropolitan areas have mucho meetings to go to. Someone living out in the country may have only 2 or 3 meeeings available--total. And across the world, AA is nowhere near as available as the U.S. Sometimes, it is hard to find one meeting in an entire region, or even in an entire country. No one can do a 90/90 in such a situation.

I ran into a guy who spent a few years in Angola and he was a fine example of AA. But he could never do 90/90 there. He couldn't even do 2 a month.

Fyne Spirit wrote

Through the steps I had a spiritual experience, a psychic change if you will, and that brought a complete change in my motivations for going to meetings. Where once I went to see what I could get out of it, meetings are now an opportunity for me to contribute and try to help my fellow alcoholic.

This is a very important issue. I understand that years ago AA in New York were very concerned about the disturbing realization that old timers, as a group, tended to drop off and eventually stop meeting attendance. They still stayed sober, for the most part, but they didn't provide that beneficial effect of their presence and wisdom at meetings. I don't know what happened to the effort, but I think the problem is quite real. I have seen the same thing in my years in AA.

-- Edited by Tanin on Wednesday 13th of March 2013 10:38:26 AM

Col · Senior Member

I got a lot out of this thread. For me personally where I'm at in sobriety, I think the daily meetings is crucial. I must admit that I was bombarded with the idea that frequent meeting attendance is crucial, and for me it has become so. I'm very lucky to live in a major metropolitan area with lots of meetings as options. The point you mentioned about the old timers in NY is both sad and interesting. There's a noontime meeting that I attend often that is comprised of a great mix of people. Many of these are retired old timers, most of whom live nearby and attend daily. I have learned a tremendous amount from these men. It's strange that there are not many old timer women that I see... I'm guessing this has much to do with the old stigmas surrounding women alcoholics. It's too bad, though, because I think newcomer women can sometimes be overwhelmed with the male presence at most meetings in my area- I know I was.

Tanin · MIP Old Timer

Col wrote:
It's strange that there are not many old timer women that I see... I'm guessing this has much to do with the old stigmas surrounding women alcoholics. It's too bad, though, because I think newcomer women can sometimes be overwhelmed with the male presence at most meetings in my area- I know I was.

For both of these issues, another factor is that AA is comprised of 65% males and 35% females. That ratio hasn't changed much in the last ten years. Probably won't change in the future, either.

StPeteDean · MIP Old Timer

Tanin wrote:
Col wrote:
It's strange that there are not many old timer women that I see... I'm guessing this has much to do with the old stigmas surrounding women alcoholics. It's too bad, though, because I think newcomer women can sometimes be overwhelmed with the male presence at most meetings in my area- I know I was.
For both of these issues, another factor is that AA is comprised of 65% males and 35% females. That ratio hasn't changed much in the last ten years. Probably won't change in the future, either.

Col, they're out there, you just have to find the meetings that they like. A lot of "old timers" like church meetings and smaller groups. snoop around these churches and you'll likely find a real cozy meeting in a church basement with 12-20 people. I had one of those for a home group (Arlington VA) on friday night called "the what group". I've been in FL now for 20 years and that meeting is still there.

http://www.aavirginia.org/hp/meetings/waw.asp?day=5&town=ARLINGTON