Meetings
Hi Everyone,
I went to AA for one year...one meeting, maybe two a day. I had severe depression that I had been self-medicationg with alcohol. I sat in these meetings listening to everything. We had about 20 people at each meeting and today I wrote down the names of the people that I sobered up with and there are 10 women and 10 men still sober here or died sober ( six of the men after long sobriety).
I reduced the number of my meetings the second year of my sobriety to three times a week because I was going to college & working part time. Two of these meetings were at noon and one in the evening on Sunday.
I was one to look for the newcomer and usually always if we had a newcomer in our meeting we did the First Step. Since I do live in a rural community in WA State...a lot of us were at the other meetings and here we had a lot of court referred people. Most of them were around for most of two years until their deferred sentence was satisfied. Then they went back to drinking.
Some of our members went to in-patient or out-patient alcohol treatment. Some other members sobered up with AA. We had a couple 13 Steppers, a couple Big Book Thumpers, and a couple of guys who picked apart what everyone said about working their program. When these guys were at a meeting I chose to not speak. I did not need to be ridiculed by them.
As my depression got some better, with my antidepressant that my psychiatrist told me not to let anyone in my AA group talk me out of taking, I shared more and more in a meeting if the topic gave me the "gut" feeling or I related to or to help someone who was new to the program.
I worked the program and still work the program in my daily life. The Serenity Prayer has been my biggest help in times of not knowing if I can change something or not. I had to buy another big book because I keep giving mine away to ladies that don't have the where-with-all- or intentions to buy a book. I often felt if a person could afford to drink, they could afford to buy a big book.
My sponsor and I used to go to the County Jail and bring AA to the women there...most did choose to come and were in jail due to alcohol or drug charges.
My program fits me and me only. No one person can dictate to me what I should do to stay sober...I listened at the meetings I took what I knew would help me and left the rest...sometimes I would go back and pick up the rest. I found that sometimes I did not accept something that I really needed to be honest with myself. :ghug
kelsh