davaidavai

If I was creating a school of recovery, I would design it sort of like an improv class. People could practice connecting with each other. They could practice humor and figurative speech. One section might be perhaps conversing with others not exactly like them in age and appearance. The phone would be a section. The importance of not calling at 11PM to have a random chat. Or not asking for someone's phone number with no intention of actually contacting them. It might take weeks to adequately explain punctuality. So you try to arrive at work on time. Why are you offended when your friend is peeved that you are often an hour late? There would be assignments, like show and tell type assignments, to show that it's OK to talk about actual things with other people, to bring things up, as opposed to just standing there and waiting, or exclusively talking about your problems. Or, for those given to speaking in 15 minute speeches, the chair of the meeting might interrupt with something like, 'now, you are beginning to lecture.' And then when the alcoholic acts offended and says 'but that's because I have a lot to say," the chair would say, 'yes, but it's boring and rude to drone on.'

Maybe attention, or mindfulness, could be a thing, alerting them to the reality of self and other. We are in a room together. There is possibility in this room. Yes, it is nice to be merely among others sitting on folding chairs, but each other harbors a unique world.

I think then once informed, the possibility of joy in connection -- the thing initially attributed to alcohol -- might become more of a reality for groups of alcoholics who possibly simply lack information

biminiblue

You can start your own meeting and try out all those ideas...good luck!

silentrun

I think the connection to others is the magic of recovery too if that's what you mean. Looking at ways I am similar to others instead of different saved my butt. That connection allows me to borrow their healing and insights when I am stuck and reminds me the world doesn't revolve around me when they are stuck.

davaidavai

Yes, it can be eye opening, the practice of finding similarity. We are all human and all similar. I've found it to be a slow baked thing. I also like the practice of admiring people who previously I wouldn't have admired. But there is a risk and a challenge in all this in as much as we are all similar and all fundamentally deserve respect, but we are also all different, and some people are best respected from a distance! Sometimes similarity is an illusion. Or a desire. Or a cry. Whatever it is, it is a call to pay attention to emotions, to what is said and felt, and to work in that space.

I have found recovery often to be like a symphony composed in the negative. Or perhaps like middle eastern music, with that tragic and beautiful plaint, composed in the Doric, or whatever key it is that sounds that way. The black keys. It's aspirational, but it's also the music of the sundered and the fragmented. Or this is how I experience them via projection of myself. They wish for that vital experience. Or is it that I wish for it and they wish for other things? Or a complex mixture. But we are still driven by base impulses, and we cannot see. We cannot ordinarily step beyond ourselves to access that joy of connection that alcohol collectively oversees. But is even such a thing possible or even preferable to a quiet waiting, a programmatic recounting? Perhaps the nature of recovery is that we never see the door opening because that door leads to other places where the recovering don't gather.

I've made it a practice to always call those whose numbers I trade off with. Rarely do they return the favor. More often, I will catch a wilderness voice. Someone who begins calling at odd hours. Perhaps this is what a friend is. This is the way this part of the world is I suppose. One has to knock on many doors. And many are at home, but busy watching television. And in this, I am similar.