JohnnyBravo

Get that brain washed as much as possible in the first 3-5 years. Then maybe it's posssible to cut back. Depends on how long you were a drunk.

After doing meeting every day for years, I had AA in me and travelled to a place with no meetings and had the strength to start my own. I know survive on 1 a week as I work the steps everyday.

Also, if you put your family before your sobriety, you'll end up getting drunk and losing them.

Sugah

I'm with JohnnyBravo on this one. In my first year and a half of sobriety, my daughter did her homework in the rooms. I lived on a street with three bars, numerous active dealers, and the rented house I lived in had been raided nine months before I moved in. Paraphernalia was falling out of ceiling tiles and out of crevices for months.

Balance is a great thing, and I think it is a natural occurrence of working a good program. Everybody who goes to meetings knows some petrified authority on AA, but that does not mean that everyone who goes to a lot of meetings is of that breed. Newcomers reading this thread might get the wrong idea -- that if they feel better going to a lot of meetings that they're somehow on the wrong path.

I have always thought the saying, "meeting makers make it" was misleading. Meeting makers make a lot of meetings, but nothing takes the place of a god of one's understanding, a sponsor and serious commitment to taking the steps. However, having said that, I would never discourage anyone in the first few years of sobriety to go to fewer meetings. If someone sat on a barstool every day for years or sat in front of the television in the armchair for years, what's wrong with spending an hour a day in a meeting? It takes time to change old ways.

I don't go to a meeting every day. I hit anywhere from two to five a week, depending on the week and the various events. I see people like the ones described above, and I see people who are truly working hard on themselves and go to as many meetings as they can. They're trying to learn how to live again. And, I also hear people who carp outside of meetings about both types of "meeting makers." Now, I don't pretend to read minds, but the impression I get from those folks is that they're trying to justify something wrong in their own programs by fault-finding in others.

Chip, do what you need to do. Just please, for your sobriety, check your motives every step of the way. I know you're in a lot of pain right now, and so long as you're aware that other areas of your life could use some attention and you're willing to give them attention, I think you'll do okay.

Peace & Love,
Sugah

chip

Thanks for the thoughtful replies!

I should say something now that is very important to this topic: It feels right to go to the meetings that I go to. I don't always go everyday, but when I am going everyday, it feels like it's what I need.

I believe that I've completed step 1 and 2. I am working on step 3 on a daily basis. I believe that if I really dedicate myself to completing step 3, a course of action must come next...hence step 4.

Some of you know I started on step 4 last year. I had to go back and make sure I really did the first 3 steps because I was afraid. It's suposed to be a fearless moral inventory, and I wasn't really ready. This time, I want to do step 4 because if I don't, I can't really live God's will to the best of my ability. I need to understand my glaring defects and sort that out so I can become a more effective servant of God.

I know in my heart, the nature of my wongs. I need to get them on paper and move forward, complete step 4 properly, and do a 5th step. My spirit is crying out to get rid of the burdens I carry.

With all that said, I can be lazy at times. It's easier for me to go to a meeting than it is to sit down and look at myself for who I really am. It's easy to get my "recovery fix" at a meeting, go about my day to day life, and not do any step work. So far this has kept me sober. Long term, I really need to get going on the steps.

I just don't feel like working on my 4th step after a meeting. The sense of urgency is often lost after I go to a meeting, and I think I need that sense of urgency to motivate me to do my step work.

Although I don't feel like I attend too many meetings right now, I naturaly cut back when I find that I'm daydreaming or resenting the meetings. I try to go to at least 4 a week. I've never had a week where I haven't gone to at least one.

I'm going to keep going to however many I need. If it's every day, then I won't beat myself up over it. I do need to force myself to do the step work though...

I've been reading the chapters describing the steps over and over, aloud, each night from the 12 and 12 book. I also spend 45 minutes or so a day praying and reading my daily reflections/24 hour a day books. If I do this, and go to a daily meeting.....I still am not spending as much time on my recovery as I did on my drinking.

Thanks for reading.
chip

Pilgrim

Hi Chip,

I hear all sorts of advice about the steps. I did them quite fast and got into helping others as soon as possible.

I was told there is a domino effect when we do the steps and a natural progression into the next one. If we wait too long between them, we lose the momentum.

I am sitting at home with my children enjoying life. As long as we feel serene, and our recovery is good, meeting or home, it can't be wrong huh?

barb dwyer

HI hon ...

Good to hear form you again ... your posts are always so thought provoking ...

yes, I've seen people 'insulate' with the meetings and not necessarily The Program.

Because , if you're working the steps , I mean WORKING them ... life ... opens up.
You can't CANNOT insulate ... if you're DOING what is recommended.

Granted - there's worse things to be addicted to.

There's also shouting about the mote in someone's eye...
While balancing the plank in your own...

Which is what *I* got from the post, Chipster.

*We* can't tell you if you're spending too much time in meeitngs - geyah ...
But *a good many of us* CAN relate to the old
'divert attention off MY drinking and look at the evil of YOUR recovery" ruse ....

"I wouldnt drink so much if you weren't...
(insert excuse/blame game here)
'spending so much time in recovery meetings ... '
'working so much'
'so different now that you're sober'



Is that it?
So ... it still somehow -... twists around to the dreaded 'fault'.
Hon, I'm 0 - 4 with the whole 'relationship' thing.
I suck at it.
BUt ... I have heard that excuse more than once... in more than one marriage.

They're not angry at your capacity to change.
They're not really angry that you have changed.
Or even your capacity to stand on your own.
They're angry ... because .. they can't.
They haven't.

And YOUR changing ... has not changed them.


Just a different view ... from a broad.

Tazman53

Balance I have found is key GOOD sobriety as long as the bias is towards sobriety.

In other words as others have said one can hide from life in the rooms, but is that really GOOD sobriety? The main reason I got sober was to regain the ability to live life on lifes terms, when I first got sober I needed at a minimum a meeting a day, as I worked the steps I gained the ability to live life on lifes terms and stay sober and happy.

Part of life for me is family as a result once I was getting a grasp on living life sober, I had to become part of my family again, I was incapable of doing this while I was in meetings 7 days a week 1-2 times a day. I have slowly cut back to 4 solid meetings a week and 1 meeting with my sponsee a week, or as needed.

If I start to feel a bit squirrely then I go to more meetings and speak with my sponsor and work with my sponsee more.

Will I ever stop going to meetings? No way!!!! I need to give away what was freely given to me in order for me to keep it, I can see me possibly dropping back to 3 meetings a week in a few years, but maybe not, it all depends upon where my head is at.

AA is not about going to meetings and working with other alcoholics, AA is about learning how to function outside of the rooms without drinking and being happy.

Most of the old timers I know with good sobriety attend 3-4 meetings a week, do things with thier families and have other outside activities, they have a good balance in their lifes maintaining thier sobriety as the number one priority in their lifes.

I also know a few old timers where AA has become thier life, is this a bad thing? For most of the ones I know it's not, their children are grown and gone and thier spouse is either also in the fellowship or has passed. They are happy living that way and are not using the rooms as an escape.

There are those though that do hide from life in the rooms long after they really should have.

In the old days of AA the majority of folks had worked all 12 steps in less then a month, were sponsoring people and living life outside of the rooms.

Chip this is just me speaking, but I did not get sober, work the steps, & sponsor people just to attend AA meetings, I did all of that to where I can live life, and life includes my family and many things outside of AA, but having said that I still need the program in order to continue to live life on lifes terms, so meetings, a sponsor, & sponsees will always be my anchor on life.

collinsmi

That sounds like a good idea. Know an old timer who said "you can hide from AA in meetings". When I try to rearrange things or start cutting back, a lot of times I don't know when to stop.