GwenCummings

I have a question for regular AA members?

I've been to two meetings now and at both people have commented on how well I look. I dress smartly and am well spoken. I live in the North of England and people here tend to interpret my Midlands accent as "posh".

My brain says that this is people wondering why I'm there and assuming I don't have much of a problem. There was another newcomer at the meeting and he was shaking and looked very ill. It was his day one without alcohol. it was my day 20.

The thing is.. I am very good at putting on a show of normality. It doesn't mean I don't emerge from a night's drinking with bruises of unknown origin, offended friends and husband and a feeling of the deepest despair.

Dont get me wrong. I shall go back and people were very helpful.

What do you expect to see when people attend meetings?

Thanks.

TigerLili

I don't expect to see anything. I don't judge people by how they look on the outside.

I've had people tell me I don't look like I've got much of a problem. I ignore them. It's enough of a problem for me.

People from all walks of life end up in the rooms. Not all alcoholics are the drinking out of a brown paper bag on a park bench kind.

afloatsober

I expected to see a bunch of semi drunk people, scruffy, dirty and all craving a drink!!!
I found a mixed bunch of sober happy people, joking chatting and drinking tea!!!
Wanted some of that so i hung around
G

Try18

The meetings I attend have everyone from high flying lawyers driving fancy cars to people who are homeless and barely getting by. Young, old, black, white, gay, straight in the rooms of AA in my city (and the world over.)

What you see on the outside is no reflection of what's inside. I have found it detrimental in my past - trying to outwardly portray "I'm ok" when inside I'm in so much pain. It takes me being honest with myself and others that even though the outside is well turned out, its me trying to overcompensate for what's going on inside.

GwenCummings

Maybe it says more about me than it does about them/

A mixture of slight paranoia and never feeling I fit in anywhere. When I listen to their stories, I hear that repeated. Feeling " different".

SR is like magic. You write something down and people help to make it clearer. XX

Johno1967

No one ever picked me as alcoholic. I can't imagine what an alcoholic is supposed to look like or act like in public when they are integrating normally.
Could be my kids teacher, my dentist, the girl at the supermarket check out, in fact anyone.

GwenCummings

For the most part, the people at the meetings just looked ordinary. I was just surprised that they commented on my appearance in their shares I guess.

GracieLou

Me either. I try not to judge. Everyone's bottom is different. If you are in the rooms that means to me you have reached it or you are tired of digging.

It is not up to me to decide when you have had enough.

MIRecovery

Alcohol is an equal opportunity offender. There is no such thing as a stereotypical alcoholic

Tamerua

Hi Gwen, maybe that meeting gets a different crowd? We have a meeting where a halfway house brings folks in and a lot are down on their luck. It's really great to see their profess after a few months.

sugarbear1

alcoholism has no boundaries......

paul99

Park Avenue to park bench...it's the full range. I've sat beside well known actors and also sat beside guys who live in a cardboard box. There is no normal, other than the desire to stop drinking

tomsteve

isn't that wild?? in the time ive been in AA, all the meetings ive attended and people I have met, there are only 2 I ever drank with. when I got into AA I hit a lot of 1st step and what it used to be like what happened and what we are like now meetings. at first I was listening to the drinkin thing and had a hard time relating.
then I started hearing the thinkin thing. amazed that people who hadn't had a drink in10,20,30n years had the same thinkin.

muvinon

I was also extremely self-conscious for quite awhile. It left as I truly got to know the people in my group.

I believe any new group is going to make most everyone feel a bit that way, but gosh, add alcoholism into the mix, and that sense is extreme. I used to put it....."My toes are very big, so it's easy to step on them right now."

I made a decision to ignore my feelings and figured it was all part of adjusting to sober living and to a radical change in my life. I think that was a wise attitude to adopt. What did surprise me was how long it took to really feel settled and accepted.

I sobered up in an area where my accent is different, I dress differently, and my way of speaking is different. People did look at me a little oddly for awhile. I think we all adjusted nicely. lol*

Once people know you.......REALLY know you......that sense of being different begins to leave.

Boleo

In most other environments those would be called "complements".

GwenCummings

I went in there with as open a mind as I could, not wishing to judge. I guess I felt judged myself. Early sobriety is about as sensitive a time as you can imagine. In the early just listening days, people cannot get to know you.
I shall persevere and give it time. Instant gratification is my thing. I don't often play the long game.

Thanks.

DoubleBarrel

I agree with Boleo. They are probably just commenting on the fact that you look well in early recovery, which is GOOD THING!! lol

Stop overthinking it.

GwenCummings

Overthinking. Correct. Bullseye! Channelling my anxiety about the whole thing into this one small thing.

i got there. thanks everyone. :-)

desypete

i have seen people come into aa meetings drunk, there first day off a bender, shakes etc
and i have seen people turn up well dressed smart and clean
while the first 2 cases it easy to see in our minds were they have come from the last one doesn't quite fit the bill
i couldnt hold a cup of tea in my first meetings and i felt everyone was looking at me, i felt dirty and ashamed of myself, my life was in a total mess and i had nothing left i was on my own my kids were in social services care i had no more money left and no one to go home to at the end of a meeting etc

i see today that i was the living warning to all those who had been lucky enough to stop in time, that if they carried on drinking they to would end up in the mess i was in

and i hope my friend you can look smart for the rest of your life and not worry to much about if you fit in or not
you dont have to go all the way down to being like i was just to feel like you now fit in in an aa room
now i am a smart appearing guy again i have my kids back again as a single parent and i have a job to
i have also worked hard within aa doing service work as i am grateful for what these people gave to me free of charge

so if you look at me now you wouldnt think i was once a down and out shaking wreck of a man
good luck to you and keep coming back all these things will vanish in time so long as your ready to work on you and let others help you

NYCDoglvr

I expect nothing. "Don't compare your insides to someone else's outsides" was great advice I was given in the early days. Better yet, "compare yourself to yourself". Alcoholics are all different, some have a relatively easy early sobriety and others, like me, are a mess. All that matters is that I don't drink today.