I did go for a nice walk yesterday courage, and will do this afternoon as well. But have a related question. I experienced something interesting around the meetings I attend now and would like to ask for feedback. I really do find these meetings helpful and scheduling them around the same time each day also helps with the routine. Earlier this week, I always had them in the late afternoon. Sometimes I feel quite exhausted and out of it during the 2-3 hours before my meetings and have impulses to skip the meeting altogether. I noticed earlier in the week that I always feel refreshed and more focused afterward though, and this definitely reinforces my determination to attend. So this morning I wanted to get out and go for a walk earlier but started feeling pretty unmotivated and just laying around getting some work done and surfing the web. I remembered how I tend to feel after the meetings, so decided to find an AA meeting now OUTSIDE of my schedule, early in the day, and went there instead of what I planned originally. It did work, and I do feel better now, and will definitely go out because I'm excited about it again and it's a beautiful day here.
The question I have, and perhaps this is a bit overanalyzing, but I want to be cautious... Is it a good idea to use recovery meetings to change my mood spontaneously? Of course it's definitely a much healthier method than drinking, drugs and other questionable behaviors. It just occurred to me that I used the meeting today in the same way (to change my mood/feelings), and I don't want to now condition myself to "self-medicate" with them in the moment when, I think, it might serve me well to just sit with the feelings and figure out self-directed ways to get into action and implement my plan. At the same time, this may not be a bad idea early on... but you know how quickly we addicts develop habits...
Any thoughts? Now I will indeed go for my walk and listen to recordings from a very nice meditation retreat I attended 2 weeks ago (sadly, I decided to get drunk at the end so I missed some of it, but luckily have these records that I can revisit). I do still plan to attend the other meeting later today that was originally scheduled, because I don't think it's a good idea to start messing with my plan more.