I used to get defensive when hearing negative things about AA, but I had an experience a few weeks back that made me a little more understanding.
I'm sober a long time, and getting kind of bored with my meetings, I ventured out to a new place I was very hopeful about. A men's meeting. I arrived a half an hour early. There were 3 guys there. They just looked at me when I went in. I introduced myself, they were cordial, said they still needed to set up, and then went about conversing with one another and pulling chairs out.
Being a good AA I offered to help. Long story short, half an hour passed, nobody said a word to me including a bunch of others who arrived for the meeting. They talked with each other, or buried themselves in their cellphones. During the secretaries break, I introduced myself as someone new to the group. During the coffee break I sat there, nobody spoke to me. Raised my hand to try and share during the meeting (only bout 20 people there), and wasn't called on. Stood alone at the end of the meeting, everybody started talking to someone else.
I hadn't felt that alone in AA in decades. If that were my first meeting, I'm pretty certain I'd never go back. I will probably never go back, to that meetings.
What I know though, is that's not typical. And fortunately, where I am there are lots and lots of meetings for me to choose from.
Even sober as long as I am I can still tend to be socially awkward at times. For that reason I've learned a bunch of things that help me to feel a lot more home at AA. In no particular order, I'll list some of them.
- Go with a friend.
- Take a commitment.
- Go early, stay late.
- Pray before, during, and after.
- Take speaking commitments.
- Search and find meetings I'm comfortable in.
- Avoid meetings I'm not comfortable in.
- Attend meetings with the intent of giving as opposed to getting.
- Share about my real feelings, even if they're not so "great".
- Be conscious of my meeting etiquette. Limit my sharing when going around the room to 3 or 4 minutes.
- Go to step and Bigbook meetings. They're a lot more focused on recovery, tend to draw people who are more serious about their recovery, and generally deter cliques.
- Get involved with the steps.
- Find a new sponsor if the one I have isn't really helping anymore. I don't currently have any sponsor, but have had many over the years.
- Find myself a homegroup I'm comfortable in, and be an active, supportive member.
I know. That's seems like a lot. But the returns I've gotten from AA have been well worth any investment I've made.