aloneagainor

I'm so profoundly moved by what transpired last night I HAVE to write this out. It's taken me so long to move toward engaging in NA, all the while it's right there within my reach, all I need to do is be there.

Last night I headed west for an outdoor NA meeting on the river shore. On a flood plain, lots of thick swampy vegetation surrounds. Being so cool as it was the bugs were barely present, only the occasional slow-moving easily-swatable mosquito. These lands are uninhabitable on hot summer days for the thick swarms of gnats and mosquitoes and flies that abound.

As I approached the roaring bonfire around which some 20 people were seated, a women from an NA group I briefly attended last winter got up and greeted me with the biggest bear-hug ever. She's a ~240 pound woman, I at half her size felt like a 5-year old child engulfed in grandma's bosom. But soooo very welcome. She repeated thrice over, "Are you OK? Are you sure?" I reassured her I'm doing fine, just unreachable, and have not kept in touch. She escorted me to the gathering and offered me a chair beside her, everyone extended such warm welcome.

Shortly before 7 another 10 or so people arrived including the two speakers for that evening. Oh my God are they PASSIONATE. Genuine. Radiating appreciation and gratitude for the people in thier lives, and for the NA organization. Lots of people in NA credit that organization for saving their life, for giving them their life and mind back. It's really quite profoundly moving to witness such testimony.

I REALLY like that about NA, how it maintains organized structure and focus, without being either rigid or a social chatterbox. It's on subject. Quite interesting to see this gathering of isolationist/ loner-type addicts amass, and enjoy fellowship.

Both addressed directly the subject of isolation and avoidance, and how life doesn't have to be that way. Why it shouldn't be that way. Powerfully moving speakers, yet completely REAL people. Just people. Good people. I had a very warm, appreciable time those two hours I was there. After the meeting everyone exchanged hugs, and set out to continue with planned activities. I said thank you and good-bye, it was as much socializing as I could do in one sitting. They said thank you for coming, and keep coming back. I think I will.

Thanks for being here.

PillPopper

I am very happy for you - more than words can say.

Luckyv2

What you said shows the importance of the fellowship of NA, the reaching out, the part about a new life, not filled with isolation. We also have those things here and we are about to have our 2nd year anniversary for our group, Where Dreams Come True. This group started with two addicts and is no the most effective group in the area having a total of 12 meetings a week and has done so since it opened on July 24, 2004. Yes we have seen our ups and downs but basically it is a group of addicts helping each other to stay clean Just for Today.

Thanks for sharing with us, HOW NA works.

Love Vic

Phinneas

Yay!


Whoo-hoo! Good for youl aloneagainor. I am so, so, SO proud of you!!

Kierra6

What a major milestone for you!

Good job! I'm so glad you enjoyed it, felt welcomed and it was a good experience.

aloneagainor

When I wrote this out I was just so wholly affected by the positive experience that it didn't occur to me how important it was that I attended that night. Or the further implications of the ascribed title in "Moved". Maybe I can move from Newcomers to this NA forum...maybe I will/ am actually commiting to moving in this direction.

One of the speakers only mentioned it in passing but I latched on to it, as he touched on the key reason I'm so hesitant to fully commit. With every move in this direction of recovery I'm destroying the opportunities to change my mind. Demolishing the defences by attending NA and other advances toward recovery leaves fewer places to hide, exposing me (my thinking and use), leaving me very vulnerable...for what if this, too, is an illusion, and won't hold together. I do realize that leaving the option to retreat back to isolation and that illusion of control prevents unfettered advances toward recovery. It's been my primary safety net for over half my 37-year life. Removing it...something has to replace it. So, I'll keep writing here, keep attending NA meetings, keep reading, keep searching, hoping, reaching, working at this, trying to connect. I'm enjoying an increasingly clearer-minded less-confused operative brain in recent weeks, so trusting this IS the path to walk. So grateful for the wisdom, support, and encouragement here and through NA received.

Time4Change

What a beautiful post! Thank you so much for sharing that. That meeting you wrote about sounds absolutely wonderful and so cozy! I, too, love the closeness and genuine kindness so freely given at NA meetings. When a meeting so deeply touches me, as this recent one did you, you've inspired me to come here and share it with the SR members.

I hope you'll continue to post here in the NA section. You're an amazing writer, too! So glad you're here.

Love, Kelly

PillPopper

Yes, as Time4Change said, you are an amazing writer (I told you that a long time ago

temlin3

Your statements are so true. In my specific case, I call it "getting myself in trouble" or "telling on myself." I call it this because I have recently begun to let others in to my "sickness" and its effects on me. I've recently told family, doctors, and loved ones "bad" things (e.g., my addictions) I never let out to anyone. I didn't realize it until afterward, but I think I was trying to get myself in trouble. By telling others, it would be one more "obstacle" in my way back to addiction. I think in order to get out of our redundant cycle of self-destruction, we have to close the doors that let us go there. In some cases, like with NA, it can be opening a new door, one that will take you to better places where your true self is brought to life Without drugs.

Thanks for the great post. I've definitely been closing some doors by putting my struggles out in the open and removing myself from "dangerous" situations... but I also need to be opening some doors. Opening one to reconnect with people as I haven't done in a very long time. Opening myself up again to see my real self, instead of just another face masked by drugs.

Great subject. Definitely one we can all benefit from.

aloneagainor

You're all making me feel as welcome here as I felt at the river meeting, which is phenomenal. It IS a phenomena to find a place with people in it where I feel comfortable, not looking to duck and hide, or even throw you off my trail. On the contrary, looking now to engage. And finding some potential here of filling the gap left open in the absence of drugs that had been filling that space. It seems...hopeful.

MOST appreciated about NA and SR is that anonymity factor, being able to be honest and look at what I'm thinking, without having to deal with negative repercussions of getting in "trouble," which has always been priority #1 to AVOID. Of all the obstacles I've put in my way (college, marriage, full time job, home business, more responsibilities than realistically manageable...so to present the illusion that I'm living straight) I managed to maneuver around every one of them perfecting the art of deception and manipulation of myself and others ever-so-much-more-so. Obstacles don't really get in our way of what we want, not if we're determined to get it. Recovery must be an internal conviction shift, a mindset change. Not because anyone forces us to, but because we want to, need to. I really need to commit to this in full. Again thanks for the encouragment, giving me further reason to continue in this.

Got It

Thank you aloneaganor - your posts are awesome - I love the info on the deception and manipulation of addicts. That is powerful and speaks loud and clear to me!!!!!

Sounds like the "promises" of the 12 steps are working in your life!!!! Take care and keep sharing - I love it!!!!

REZ

NA is great. It has saved my life. I still get a lot out of going to meetings after 21 years of recovery. I find it perplexing that so many people who contribute to SR think they don't need/wouldn't like NA or AA meetings. They just don't know what they're missing. It is the difference between really being part of a fellowship and trying to make it still, on your own.

aloneagainor

Throughout the day I thought on the perplexity that so many people think they don't need/wouldn't like NA or AA meetings. Why I thought that. I think it's because by going we're really admitting that we need help, that we cannot do it on our own. Further, by attending meetings we're actively looking to DO something about it. Can't keep hiding and using if you're out there actually addressing the matter to other people. So long as we remain in the isolated confines of our own minds, our own best thinking, we can convince ourselves of anything. Including justification/ rationalization for using. It's very...exposing. You see.

temlin3

Exposure is definitely key. Since we all eventually got to a point in our addictions that we reached out in some way, it is obvious we cannot do it ourselves. And how is anyone else to supposed to help us if we aren't forthright with them, about everything?

This is an important concept for me, and I still do not quite reach my goals consistently. I tend to let a little out, but not the whole story. Sometimes I leave out the part that makes it the story it is. Like a horror film that I present factually, but comes off to the other person as a comedy flick. It's all in how and how much you tell it.

OK, I think that's my second cheesy metaphor of the night... so I am hitting the hay. You guys are great. I wish I had no day job, so I could read every post and write everything I think and want to put down in words. But with sobriety comes simplicity... a sense of organization instead of chaos, so hopefully I'll manage time better as I go... but it's great to know that people are out there, far away yet by your side at the same time.

Thank you.
Jennifer

aloneagainor

Probably no mere coincidence that the NA meeting I attended last night focused on HONESTY. Perhaps I radiated some burning need to discuss this topic. It touches on the heart of what is preventing me from committing myself, heart, mind, and soul, to recovery. Still looking back, deceptively hiding the truth from others and from myself so to keep ALL options open.
"Still sitting on the fence, for the fear of breaking dams." -The Shins

The open discussion at the meeting last night made it crystal clear that's what I'm doing. (they didn't lecture me, they allowed me to figure it out by listening. These people in NA are amazing....) And so long as I keep doing that, the distortion and game playing will remain inherent in me. To think that it doesn't HAVE to be there. All I need do is give up the option for retreat into drugs and all that energy and manipulation associated therein will fade away. I trust that. I believe that. I've WITNESSED how this works in others in NA. Listening, and hearing, and moving forward...all that remains is committing fully to it. Insane crazy I haven't yet let it go. Only hanging on by the thinnest threads though.

aloneagainor

Last night I attended another outdoor NA event, despite the fact it had been raining all day and kept on raining through evening. The event was a three-day campout on a gorgeous countryside parkland preserve of swamp country, woodland, and rolling hills. Driving back there the road became increasingly primative, very rough, seemingly leading to nowhere. But at the end were a mass of parked vehicles, and beyond that, some 50+ tents, people wandering around in raincoats and under umbrellas, most crowded under tarps over picnic tables and open barbecues. I approached the main tent, looked around for anyone I knew, and seeing no-one, rounded the corner to return to my vehicle to depart. TOO crowded! Too many people in too tight an area. Had it been not poring rain it would have been easier to blend in and explore the park, but to stand under a tarp with people I'd never met, umm, no.

As I rounded the corner back to the parking area I heard a familiar voice call my name, the woman in charge of the Wed. night NA group I've attended the past three weeks. She offered me an umbrella, gently insisting I take it and come along with her, she'd introduce me to people. A social butterfly who knows EVERYONE and everyone knows her, she's been in NA for 11 years, one of those truly dedicated members who BELIEVES in that organization with every ounce of her body, soul, heart, and mind.

Over the course of the next hour I was introduced to some 30 people, listening to conversations amongst them but not saying much. These people know one another, some for many many years. I felt very much the newcomer that I was, but they welcome newcomers with open arms. Greetings were exchanged in a hug with every one. I must've given and received 50 hugs last night. I love it.

My tour guide host kept an eye on me the entire time, I think she recognized in full that given two seconds I'd be outta there, sneak out the back way through the woods, unnoticed. Not because I wanted to leave, but because of my social inadequacies and tendancy to seek escape (understood!) She introduced me to her mother, dog, and brother, all appreciably seated at the far rear corner of the main seating area.

The rain really picked up as the meeting started, which drew everyone in closer, closer still. Darn good thing I was at the far rear corner back to the open countryside, it was getting too tight for comfort. One of the speakers, a long time NA member I knew and the primary reason I attended this meeting, to hear him speak, took a seat at the table I was seated at. Between those two I wasn't getting away. And honestly didn't want to leave, having made it that far through social hour, the speakers were set to begin, and I very much do enjoy hearing good speakers address this subject of recovery. Motivational and encouraging to be sure.

Both speakers, powerfully moving. Each spoke for near 45 minutes, on the subject of hope, and support through the fellowship of NA, and how without it there's no way they could have, WE could have, recovered on our own. By the end of the meeting the rain had ended. I was first to depart after the meeting ended (most of them were camping for the night, it's a long drive to get there for most, but I live nearby and went home.) It was sunset, I needed to be able to back out of the long drive and still see the road, there was no way to turn around. Once out of the woods I could see far across the land, the post-rainstorm sunset more spectacularly colorful than words can describe, and a massive rainbow stretched clear across the sky, largest full rainbow I've seen in a very long while. Glad I attended. Good people all around. So encouraging to keep coming back, it works! I like moving in this direction of connectedness. The alternative option is always close in mind, but maybe I don't have to keep going there anymore.

Luckyv2

So glad that after so much time using and abusing that we are finally opening the door to recovery. Not just the putting down of the dope, but to actually live the program that is so taught to us and only we can make it work. Power's Greater than Ourselves, sure, but we ultimately have to look within ourselves to do the footwork to live a different way. Such dignity to keeping the mind open on all perceptions, and trying to do something different is recovery. Wow all the amazing things.

So glad that you are here, sharing your ESH with us. The NA fellowship will go on without us, but we can not go on without NA. NA has saved my life and now is giving me a new way to live, a better way, a happier way.

Love Vic