Originally Posted by
onlythetruth 
I'll leave it to others to explain RR's point of view on meetings. In my view, however, there is nothing wrong with meetings as long as one is realistic about the purpose of attending those meetings. They can be (for some, not all) a great way to receive social support and encouragement in the early, difficult days of abstinence. They do not, however, bestow sobriety on a person who isn't interested in achieving it.
It has to do with the definition of the Addictive Voice. Remember, the addictive voice is any thinking, feeling, or imagery that supports, or even suggests, the future use of alcohol or drugs. Viewed through the lens of AVRT, all pre-conditions for abstinence are also potential reasons to drink/use in the absence of those pre-conditions, and AVRT is ruthlessly efficient at exposing them.
For example, OTT, you recently addressed the issue of 90 meetings in 90 days in another thread, where someone was told that if they didn't go to 90 meetings in 90 days, they were "pretty much doomed to fail" (their words, verbatim). Such thinking obviously suggests that someone is going to drink again if they don't go to 90/90, and that can very easily become incorporated into their Addictive Voice.
What happens if they don't make the quota? Well, the clever Beast is probably going to say something like "so... you didn't make 90 in 90, and you know what they said, you are doomed to fail now, so you may as well go out and drink. No use trying to fight it, may as well give up. You are doomed anyway."
This is not limited to any particular recovery group, BTW, and the same thing happened with the Rational Recovery Self Help Network meetings. People would become afraid to stop going to meetings, since they had come to believe that if they didn't go, that they would drink again. It's ironic, but AVRT effectively destroyed the RR self-help network.
I suppose the question people need to ask themselves is: has meeting attendance become a pre-condition for abstinence? Has it become part of your Addictive Voice? I sometimes still hear my Addictive Voice telling me "well, we haven't gone to meetings in 'X' amount of time, we are on thin ice. Just a matter of time before we cave."
Naturally, I immediately recognize it for what it is, and I think "Nice try, Mr. Beast. You may cave, if you can ever figure out how to get to the liquor cabinet without my help, but I never drink, meetings or no meetings."