going to meetings..

[24hrsAday]

..when you don't want to! meeting makers make it! just got back from one of the best gratitude meetings i've ever attended! (i was thinking about not going..)

[jimhere]

Originally Posted by 24hrsAday

..when you don't want to! meeting makers make it! just got back from one of the best gratitude meetings i've ever attended! (i was thinking about not going..)

Meeting makers make it if their sobriety is dependant upon making meetings.

My sobriety is contingent upon making meetings, my real reliance is upon God. AA did not get me sober and AA does not keep me sober. God keeps me sober and sometimes I am reminded of that in AA meetings.

If you question this, try not going to meetings for a while.
Jim

Big Book references from Alcoholics Anonymous, First Edition

[DaveBB164]

Originally Posted by 24hrsAday

..when you don't want to! meeting makers make it! just got back from one of the best gratitude meetings i've ever attended! (i was thinking about not going..)

My First year in AA I was told "MEETING MAKERS MAKE IT" after a year of 7-9 meetings a week sometimes more I got drunk,

when I came back I learned through a strong AA sponsor and the Big Book that if I had an alcoholic mind the day would come when I would drink regardless of how many meetings I went to,

I took the steps and recovered and lost my dependancy on alcohol and meetings and gained a dependency on God, he keeps me sober today,

so I learned exactly what Jim said plus the fact that alcoholics with alcoholic minds can't have a life changing, life saving spiritual experience sitting on their ass in a meeting (my experience)

I learned step takers make it.

[ian_g]

I was attending meetings and was so nuts. I remember my friend Brett saying to me, "Kid if you think going to meetings alone is going to keep you sober...find a 24 hour meeting and don't leave cause the second you walk out that door you are screwed." He was absolutely right.

[navysteve]

Occupational hazard of being in the military; you can't always make meetings. I have gone 6 months without sitting in an AA meeting and stayed sober and serene. I have made two meetings a day, 7 days a week and was totally nuts. Meeting makers make meetings thats about it as far as I am concerned.

Meetings are important, but they are not the medicine. At best they are the pharmacy ( and that is very debatable).

[ian_g]

Yeah I have to agree...I was in the same boat. Meetings allowed me to find someone who knew what they were talking about and could guide me through the 12 steps. Other than that, they were not going to keep me sober. B. of the 3 pertinent ideas says "No human power could have relieved us of our alcoholism"...people in the meetings aren't excluded from this statement. One of the many big lies spewed around AA is "just make a meeting and you'll be ok". For the alcoholic of the hopeless variety doing this is simply not enough. When I simply couldn't go to meetings and not get load, I remember thinking I was far too advanced...that I out did AA...there was no hope for me. Luckily, when I was fortunate enough to make it back, I head the real message. I heard someone tell my story without being ashamed or scared. I found that there was a solution and it was in the book.

[NoelleR]

It's not the meetings I make, but the steps I take......

My sobriety is not, and never was, contingent on meetings; as an atheist, my sobriety was never, nor is it now, contingent on God, or any external 'greater power,' and I've managed to not only get sober, but to remain clean/sober (happy, joyous, and free/clean and serene) for 22 years (to celebrate 23 years this coming June 23rd).

I've been here sitting, tryin' to figure out when my last meetings was.....with the exception of 3-4 [partial (I'd usually leave shortly after the topic was chosen)] meetings in 2000, I haven't attended meetings since 1989 (oh, whoops, there were a few of workshops between 1990 and 1996--and only did them as I was asked to chair them).....LOL.

Now......all that being said, I always suggest that folks new to sobriety would be served well if they attended meetings as they're super for fellowship, and can help newcomers forge a good foundation for his/her recovery. Meetings can be great for gathering a support group; not many folks can 'do it' alone, and in early sobriety it's good to use all the tools available, at least until one learns which tools are necessary for his/her own recovery..... (o:


NoelleR

[Astro]

How many meetings a week should I go to?

Not sure....maybe just one.....but you'd better go to as many as possible.....cuz who's to say which one is the one you need to be at.

[SelfSeeking]

OP never said ALL s/he was doing was going to meetings... In any case, 24, it's awesome that your meeting helped you... Making it gratitude-centered is a sure fire way to avoid it turning into everyone moaning about their day

I'm not sure how to phrase this... but there seems to be a lot of one-up-manship in this thread.

[pedro1968]

ive loved going to my meetings and ive hated going to my meetings but i always went because in the begining the meetings where keeping me sober but i grew tired of the same old drunking tales in the meetings i attended
there was years of sobriety in the meetings but not a lot of recovery,so i stopped going to those meetings and the enivitable happend i went out and started drinking again, i was fortunate,i made it back to AA and now i only attend big book study groups and step meetings,where the only people in attendance are the people that want whats on offer
i have taken on a duty at my step meeting and that has been a great help to me
it has helped me be responsible and i would suggest duty service to anybody

[24hrsAday]

IMHO meeting makers make it.. for me over 2 years and 2 months clean and sober.. working the steps.. got a sponsor.. i feel better than i have in many, many years!

[CarolD]

Hmm...
I did do at least 1 a day for over a year.
Now I have tapered down to 3 or so a week.

I want to go
...I like keeping myself emotionally balanced.

[adore79]

I went to a meeting today. Im sorry but they are so boring I find myself constantly zoning out. Ill keep working at it though.

[Rusty Zipper]

hey, remember the Salerno Beachhead?

"their dependence upon a Higher Power worked. And far from being a weakness, this dependence was their chief source of strength."

a good meeting schedule balance , and just a plain everything balance is another key...

good wishes 24ad

[FightingIrish]

I guess it takes a while for black and white thinking to subside. I never related to people who hear a slogan and take it to the extreme.

[gravity]

I never took "meeting makers make it" to mean just go to meetings and I will recover.

Personally, I consider meetings to be a big part of my AA experience. Reading the Big Book and working the steps on my own (or with my sponsor) just isn't enough. Meetings keep me grounded and give me the opportunity to learn from and help others. Spiritual growth! Life is much better when I attend meetings.

I think that if I went a significant period of time away from meetings, I would lose touch with the program. I would lose my focus. I could very well become one of those guys who shows up at a meeting a few years from now wondering "what the hell happened?"

[navysteve]

I never took "meeting makers make it" to mean just go to meetings and I will recover.

But many do just that. In my post I also said that meetings were important. The steps are just more important

[DaveBB164]

Originally Posted by 24hrsAday

IMHO meeting makers make it.. for me over 2 years and 2 months clean and sober.. working the steps.. got a sponsor.. i feel better than i have in many, many years!

the meeting makers make it saying is misleading, when I hear it it makes me cringe, saying meeting makers make it and leaving at that is a dangerous anthem for an alcoholic of my type,

your original post said meeting makers make it then half way down the thread you throw in you got a sponsor and work the steps?

I could sit and listen to you all day if your mantra was get a sponsor work the steps,

meeting makers make it is deceptive and dangerous for a real alcoholic with untreated alcoholism, I am in no doubt that some of the people who say meetings keep them sober are telling the truth, but to me and others like me meeting makers make it is postponing the inevitable,

it all boils down to this, using your own experience as a yard stick to measure what is good for others is a dangerous game,

I could be sat there in a meeting as someone who is kept sober by meeting attendance (I am not by the way), telling people meeting makers make it, but what if one or more of those people in there is an alcoholic of the type that can't make it by making meetings?,

I don't mind all these erroneous b/s slogans and rhetoric that we hear in meetings really, they can have all the b/s they want, the only thing is they should keep it to themselves, that rhetoric or b/s could be the final nail in someones coffin.

[mikel60]

Hi all,
This is a great discussion. I'm currently struggling with the importance of meetings in my life. I've been sober 13 years, trust and believe in God and AA, and go to meetings on a fairly regulasr basis.

That being said, I now find my life incredibly busy. I work as a special needs teacher fulltime, am entering an intensive phase of my doctoral studies, serve as union rep, lead teacher, faculty senate officer, School site council alternate, must work out ddaily because of diabetes and asthma, and am an involved dad with two young kids (Sheila 4, and Liam, 2).

I do believe that I have, through step study, a strong spiritual foundation. However, I am currently wondering if online recovery will be enough to maintain and shore up this foundation, as making meetings is tough.

I also believe that I owe quite a bit (all of the above) to what I learned in AA. How do I meet my responsibility to carry the message to newcomers and those in crisis? Is online recovery sufficient?

My wife thinks so - I'm not so sure.

Nice thread 24! My question remains, though - am I at a meeting right now?

Mike

[mikel60]

Oh - one more thing! For the poster who finds meetings boring - try some loonie noonie meetings (12 pm). Where I live, they are certainly not boring!

Mike

[LynxArmy]

Originally Posted by jimhere

Meeting makers make it if their sobriety is dependant upon making meetings.

My sobriety is contingent upon making meetings, my real reliance is upon God. AA did not get me sober and AA does not keep me sober. God keeps me sober and sometimes I am reminded of that in AA meetings.

If you question this, try not going to meetings for a while.
Jim

Big Book references from Alcoholics Anonymous, First Edition

Try not going to meetings for a while? Even as a abstract coffee-table postulate that's a fairly odd thing to ask someone to try is it not?
I question much, it is in my nature to do so,but i would never foist what has worked for me in my journey as being THE ONLY WAY. I have found through my experience in AA, and the E,S&H of others, that if we allow ourselves we have the opportunity to come to our acceptance in our own way and find our sobriety through the things that work for us, God, Meetings, Steps, Fellowship, the list goes on. There are many tools and paths offered in AA for living sober. But for me all of these paths start with the most uncomplicated truths. If I don't have the first drink, I cannot get drunk, it is all just for today, and that if I drink I must put everything that I own and love and have worked for into the glass, because that is what I will end up drinking.
I was a bit put off AA when I first went as a couple of members of the fellowship were of the "You MUST do it my way" persuasion but I soon learned what was the truth, at least the truth for me at this time in my recovery.

Be well, all.

Lynx.

[FightingIrish]

This is a helpful topic. With a little over 576 days sober, I can appreciate the many points of view offered.

I sometimes cringe in meetings when I hear newcomers - or even people with time - say things like, "just don't drink and go to meetings", which is a variant on "meeting makers make it" but which IMHO is more misleading.

On the other hand, I have also seen old timers pile on to these people using their own shares as a strident and obvious negation of what the person had said, while somehow managing to fall short of crosstalk. In one case this person got up and left the meeting and never came back.

There's a guy who is just starting to come around here, and he has raised his hand at meetings and said that he's new and is trying to do 90 meetings in 90 days. Now, while 90/90 is not an official part of the program, I found it a VERY helpful suggestion in my early sobriety, as it helped me gauge my own willingness, having been someone who couldn't even get the laundry done by the end of the weekend. If I couldn't even make it to meetings on a regular basis, I probably wasn't going to be successful in any aspect of the program or fellowship, but that's my experience.

I don't know...we make things so complicated. I couldn't stop drinking...I couldn't on most occasions predict how much I was going to drink or what was going to happen...I couldn't stop from starting once I had decided to stop...I couldn't take it or leave it...I'm an alcoholic.

But there's a real off-putting pridefulness in this whole "real alcoholic" thing that really turns me off as I see it manifest itself here and in the rooms. I'm not sure exactly where this comes from.

I told a guy I was working with that he wasn't done yet. He wasn't even able to make meetings on a regular basis. And, perhaps as a result, he had little context for the book or the steps. Is that cruel? I don't think so. Bu I do think it's cruel to jump all over people who seem to be have an honest desire to stop drinking, even if their message is "watery".

M

[24hrsAday]

i would like to honestly point out that when "I" say meeting makers make it.. it is based on what "I" have seen in A.A.. people who are (too smart/busy/or whatever) to go to meetings i have seen often times relapse or don't seem to be very "happy" in their sobriety.. i myself am an example of this.. that does not mean i cannot ever miss a meeting!

[DaveBB164]

I would say in my experience if people get drunk its because they have an alcoholic mind not because they miss meetings

[SelfSeeking]

Originally Posted by DaveBB164

I don't mind all these erroneous b/s slogans and rhetoric that we hear in meetings really, they can have all the b/s they want, the only thing is they should keep it to themselves, that rhetoric or b/s could be the final nail in someones coffin.

Now I understand why I am met with the chirping of crickets when I come to the 12 step forum and dare to say that I enjoyed a meeting.

Oh no, we are not a glum lot at all.