Category Archives: meetings

Bitch, whine and debate, or Experience, Strength, and Hope?

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The other night I was at a meeting where the chair asked for a topic, and one of our more “intellectual” members raised a hand and commenced a five-minute dissertation on how they didn’t understand why we say in the rooms that it takes an addict to really understand an addict, why they shouldn’t just be able to speak openly about their addiction to any friend and get useful feedback, etc. They used the words obviously, clearly and in my opinion a lot. This sort of thing does nothing to promote discussion about recovery; it merely exercises the ego of the speaker.

Our fellowships are not debating societies. They are about getting a sponsor, developing a support system, working the steps and practicing the 12 principles* in our daily lives. If I want to bitch, whine or debate, I need to do it outside a meeting with my sponsor or a support, not hijack a meeting with subjects that have little or nothing to do with the process of recovery. Better yet, at whatever point in recovery I may be, I need to remember that I’m the problem, and projecting my complaints onto other people or ideas is not conducive to a genuine pursuit of sobriety.

Maybe that’s what I’m doing now: projecting my issues.

Or maybe not.

  • 12 Principles? What 12 principles?

A Possible Topic For Meditation Or A Meeting

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I was at a meeting on Saturday (online, of course). We had a discussion of the good things that have come from the pandemic. I’m not going to mention specific things that were brought up, because I don’t want to do your thinking for you. However, I challenge you — and perhaps your group — to consider the matter in some detail.

It’s easy to bitch, moan, and complain. “It’s not fair!”, “Someone should…”, “Why me?”, and similar laments are the default setting for us addicts and codependents, and stresses like we’re suffering these days — so alien to so-called normal behavior for most of us — can bring them out in abundance. One of our default behaviors is to automatically look for the worst scenario and then fixate on it. The pressures of confinement, especially close confinement with family and partners, money worries and the other things that plague most of us these days are guaranteed to challenge our sobriety and strain our sanity (in the sense spoken of in Step Two).

So let’s pull our minds out of the mud for a few minutes and really consider carefully the possible things we’ve gained or have the potential to gain from our current circumstances. I’ll bet if we actually stop and think about it mindfully, we’ll discover that things could certainly be worse and that some things may even be better.

Whenever anyone, anywhere, reaches out…

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I’m still amazed – although, by now I guess I shouldn’t be – by the extraordinary ways that people in the fellowships step up and do what needs to be done in a crisis. I’ve seen that so many times: when arrangements need to be made for holiday meeting coverage; when members are going through devastating personal crises; when a new meeting site is suddenly needed, organizing picnics, bonfires and other get-togethers, and numerous other ways. For some odd reason, sobriety seems to bring out the best in folks.

Never has that willingness to be of service been more obvious than over the past month. As our options for mobility and meeting face-to-face have contracted to – finally – our own living rooms, members have, without being asked, set to work establishing online and phone options to continue the fellowships that keep us sober and relatively sane. Those who are able to host Skype and Zoom meetings have done so and spread the word. Phone meetings have been set up and information has gotten out with astounding speed. Websites have gotten extensive and prompt attention. The information has been spread by phone calls, text chains and probably smoke signals for all I know.

In short, the things that need doing to meet the Responsibility Statement of AA, which is generally adhered to in spirit by all the fellowships to which I belong and most others, are getting done. That is happening with a minimum of fuss and bother: just people helping others in the best ways they know of. The way it’s been for the several years I’ve been around the rooms, and for decades before that.

If you’re having trouble finding meetings, support or just folks to hang out with (electronically), check around. Call your local Intergroup office, or look on the website. If you haven’t explored those sources before, now is a great time – a critical time – to do so. The folks in the fellowships have been there and done that. Help and support are always available if you look for them, and that is even more true in the current test that the entire human race is undergoing. Anyone who has been around the rooms for a while has experienced the hollow feeling of arriving at a meeting and finding no one there, for whatever reason. In my case, at least, it seems like there was usually an oldtimer who showed up “just in case,” and who was up for a cup of coffee and a chat. I’ve been the newcomer and the oldtimer, both, and I guarantee that the feeling – for me – was the same in all cases: relief. Oldtimers need love too.

If you’re looking for support, reach out; it’s there. If you’re bored, reach out to another addict; the means are there. This pandemic is likely to change the world in ways we haven’t dreamed of yet. Perhaps that will be for the worse, perhaps not. We can dwell on the good versus bad question, or we can choose to move forward. One thing is for sure, in my not-so-humble opinion: the fellowships are going to change, expand, and become even better at achieving the intent of that Responsibility Statement.

Stick around. Be part of the change. Be part of the solution. You’ll be glad you did.

And please be safe! May whatever part of the universe you choose to think is watching keep you that way.

The “Religion Thing”

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The issue of religion arises at least once a month at any 12-step meeting that includes people. It’s amazing how it causes confusion. Some folks claim that you have to believe in God, while others say all you have to do is admit you aren’t Him. Others, myself among them, maintain that the spirituality aspect of the program has nothing to do with God unless we choose to make it so. Only one thing’s for sure: put two alcoholics or other addicts in the same room and it will soon be overflowing with opinions. Continue reading →

Re-post, with some editing: Don’t Wait ‘Til No Fat Ladies Sing!

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Close to thirty years ago I checked into treatment for my alcoholism and addiction to other drugs. It was a terrific relief.

I’d known for a long time that I was an alcoholic. I was essentially unaware of AA and its purpose, or that there were effective treatments for addictive disease. I wasn’t entirely unaware, because I’d been dealing with drunks and addicts for years as a police officer. It had simply managed to escape me that AA and other programs were anything other than a place to dump problems that turned up back on the street later.

By the time my boss more-or-less forced me into treatment, I’d had most of the jackpots: divorce, foreclosures, evictions, loss of other people’s money as well as tons of my own, estrangement from relatives — all the fun things that we addicts collect along the way to perdition. My denial about my surface problems was pretty weak, and it didn’t take much for me to become accepting about treatment, then hopeful, and then enthusiastic. I ended up damned grateful to the Chief of Police and whoever advised him about how he should deal with his relatively high-ranking and increasingly visible problem.

So I got sober and became a credit to my mother, my school, my family, my country and all that good stuff. I worked in the recovery field. I talked recovery. I even became a bit of a recovery guru, writing about addiction on my own and for treatment facilities that needed a down-to-earth approach to some of their material. But to a great degree I was a fraud, and I didn’t even know it.

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