Originally Posted by
Realest 
I was at a meeting and heard someone relapsed because they got a resentment at the meeting and stopped going to meetings and drank. I hear people stop going to meetings and it scares me . I don’t want to drink today nor in the near future but I get discouraged at people who say then stopped going to meetings and died or relapsed.
I get sick of the meetings sometimes and I only have less than two years. I am scared I’ll get sick of the meeting and it’ll get old don’t you guys get sick of going to meetings sometimes?.
My history/experience will, hopefully, make some sense and be of some benefit.
I just hit 12 years. I've probably only been to a couple thousand meetings - that's somewhere between 2 and 3 meetings per week for 12 years. There were times I did a lot more than 2 or 3 and times I did a lot less. If I were to add in the hours I've spent listening to Big Book Studies, open talks or times spent on AA retreats....... then that number of "meetings" would be somewhere around 9000 hours..... 11,000 hours... I can't say precisely but it's a LOT and it's probably north of 11k but whatever. Looked at another way, for the average person attending 2 hours of AA meetings per week, it would take them about 67 years to hit 7000 hours. Given this absurd amount of time spent listening/learning AA, it's almost never, now, that I hear something new. I can't recall the last time I went to a meeting and learned something I haven't heard before. Im not brilliant...... I've just heard a TON of stuff over a 12 year time frame. It stands to reason that the amount of "new info" is going to dwindle over time.
Now........ if I were still selfishly going to meetings because I wanted to GET something from them, well they lost that shine yeeeeeeeeeears ago. And ya know, people who go to AA, or are part of AA, to be takers...... none of them stick around. They may last years (usually it's not that long though) but I've seen it over and over and over again. At some point they either make the switch to being givers......or they go. The spiritual life isn't a theory right - we MUST live it. And there's not much room in living a spiritual life living as a spiritual thief.
Here's the thing though. When Sally-AA leaves the meetings, gets drunk then comes back and says she got drunk because she quit going to meetings.... what I've found in every case I've talked to someone about is that they thought "going to a meeting" and/or sharing their day and/or going to a meeting for help/support/and instruction constituted being IN AA and being an active AA member. Very rarely will there also be a strong history of having a sponsor.......or of sponsoring others. Very few will be involved in service to AA be it in AA's service boards or even in the local meetings. Most won't have taken the 12 steps and the vast majority will have some really "interesting" takes on how they customized the steps to suit themselves. I could go on but you get the idea. The points are these - 1. Were they REALLY in recovery to begin with and 2. Is it possible that they're just looking at what was just the final straw as being the whole deal? If I don't study for a test, skip class, don't read the book, stay up late partying, and oversleep on the day of the test and show up to class late..... did I really fail the test because I "didn't have enough time to complete it because I overslept?" ....or is that just a convenient excuse that takes the light off of all my other actions and inactivity where it really mattered?
And finally..... I think it's, and this is MY OPINION only, almost a sure thing that if you attend enough meetings where you're looking for something for you......looking to be enlightened or entertained.....hoping that the right ppl show up to give you what you think you want, I'd say it's guaranteed that you WILL GET BORED with meetings. If we just pretend I'm right (which of course isn't guaranteed by any means), then one better start looking for a solution to the boredom problem because it's coming your way. I found when I go to meetings looking to give, to help, to share in a way that's attractive to those I'm sitting with..... they never get boring. There's been a shift in my approach, and that makes a huge difference.
I don't think my findings have been unique or special either. What do they say over and over again in the Big Book - work with others, help others, fit yourself to be of maximum service to others....... over and over and over and over. That's what being in recovery looks like. And when I'm in that mode - of giving, of serving others - and I'm focused on others...... I'm not thinking about myself...... so it's therefore impossible to think about being bored. Right? How can I be thinking about myself if I'm thinking about others? When I'm focused on me though...... bam - bored (or sad, or mad, or etc) - and when I'm in this mode, I'm not on a spiritual path, I'm back to living in selfishness and if I'm really an alcoholic, it's guaranteed that I'll drink again.......or just be miserable until I finally die.