choublak

Like when a meeting and its time are listed at a church, but then you go to the church and there is no sign of a meeting there.

Does this happen a lot?

visch1

No, not where I am tho sometimes a meeting will close down. BE WELL

choublak

There had been a "church meet and greet" there a couple hours before; the church apparently just got a new pastor, hence the meet and greet.

LadyinBC

Not sure if it happens often. I was going to the ladies AA meetings here and went one day and no one was there. Someone later on told me that the ladies are still meeting but no one knows where! Not sure how true this is though.

choublak

How did they (the person who told you) know that the ladies were meeting in another unknown location though?

LadyinBC

He apparently knows some of them as they go to other meetings. However I can't find the meeting on the AA website. No listing at all for new meetings. Maybe it is just not listed yet. I didn't call to confirm either though.

choublak

Things like that are just frustrating.

LadyinBC

Yes, they definately are! I did find Women for Sobriety meetings so I go to those as it is all women. Different program, but I really do like it.

iwh

This has actually happened to me on a few occasions, then I end up walking around the perimeter of the building and eventually have found a small AA sign or see someone walking in a random door and turns out that's where the meeting is.

I've found they are not always in a main entrance and some times in a basement or some other part of the building.

Maybe that will help.

MIRecovery

In early sobriety I went to one of your nonexistent meetings and I got my knickers in a knot. I talked to my sponsor and he explain that AA is a free program supported by volunteers. All Things Considered AA meetings happened about 99 percent of the time which is pretty good for a volunteer organization run by a bunch of alcoholics

honeypig

This does happen, but it's not common. We are all human and sometimes mistakes are made--a meeting moves its time or location and no one remembers to notify the local office to update the web site, or the office is backlogged or not staffed all the time (ours isn't staffed all day every day) and no one has made the change online yet. Worse yet, if you have a printed list, who knows how old it may be? And sometimes, as you say, an event may be going on during the time the meeting is scheduled and thus the meeting is moved or cancelled for that day only.

As the poster above mentioned, it is a volunteer organization with no dues--everyone involved is there on their own nickel. I think you just happened into bad luck, which is unfortunate but certainly not the norm, at least in my experience.

As mentioned on the other thread where you posted this topic, it's probably best to contact your local office about the problem, and if it's a big concern for you, maybe confirm with them about any other meetings you may be considering attending. I have done this for meetings where a specific location in the facility is not given, i.e., if it just says "Aurora Psychiatric Facility", I will call or email the Alanon office and ask for more details so I at least know what building or floor or room I am looking for.

Try again; you'll find it's worth it, I think!

sugarbear1

we're alcoholics....sometimes we have "no shows" and sometimes someone doesn't call the intergroup office to let them know a meeting won't happen.....sometimes a meeting stops for some reason and it takes a while to get that information out there....

we're an undisciplined lot!

DisplacedGRITS

It happens but it shouldn't happen a lot. I know my group just struck too late night meetings because they weren't well attended (if attended at all) and it was hard to find chairpersons for them. If you're having a problem with these ghost meetings, contact you local AA central office. They need to know and may be able to tell you what's up. Another thing you can do is call your local AA hotline and get a recommendation on a meeting to attend. They'll most likely direct you to a stable, long established group. I had one time that i chaired a 7:00 PM meeting where the only guy who showed up was there at sometime past 7:10. I'd been sitting there since 6:30 and it was awfully tempting to leave but i stayed and ended up having a nice (though short) meeting with the guy that showed. There are going to be ghost meetings for one reason or another but don't let that discourage you. We're all volunteers that do this and sometimes, something happens. It shouldn't be the norm though. If you're in doubt about whether or not a meeting is happening at a place, call the AA hotline or central office. They'll help you out!

choublak

Yeah, but everybody doing a "no show" at the same time?

Grungehead

It doesn't happen a lot but it happens...especially when one's intergroup hasn't updated their meeting schedule in over a year like ours. Sometimes groups will fizzle out or they will need to relocate for one reason or another (getting too big for their current location).

Dave42001

Look up AA hotline for your location and call.. Some of the websites I've seen while traveling are outdated but there will always be someone there to answer the phone I know that for a fact.. Glad you're going to check out a meeting!! Give it another shot, call and talk to a human, they will tell you where the closest meeting is.. Good luck to you!!

Threshold

I drove 70 miles for a meeting, that wasn't there. Called the local office twice to find out if the meeting had been moved or cancelded, didn't get a call back.

Went to another meeting twice and it wasn't there, followed it to the alternate site they left a little sign, and it wasn't there either.

It happens. Good news is that we do recover, meetings or not. Call backs or not. OUr recovery is up to us, and it's our job to maintain it even if for some reason some of our tools and resources fall through.

It's really easy to get a resentment over it, and say "how am I supposed to recover if they don't hold up THEIR end?" and use it as a reason to drink, use, etc.

I was once a seed member of a new meeting in an area that had been asking for local meetings. I drove 35 miles to be there, week after week, and no one but the other seed memeber ever showed up. So, it works both ways. Sitting in a room with one other person, reading the literature and going through the motions week after week and wondering where all those people who said "We want a meeting, we need a meeting, please start a meeting" were.

One of those times I went and there wasn['t a meeting, another person showed up....not a chair or regular attender of tha t meeting, so we sat and had our own meeting in tehhallway. We didn't have the opening literature or anything, but we talked recovery and I signed his court order form.

choublak

I didn't know there could be a meeting with just two people, but I guess there's no reason why not.

Threshold

This is a quote from NA literature "A Narcotics Anonymous group is any meeting of two or more recovering addicts who meet regularly at a specific time and place for the purpose of recovery from the disease of addiction."

So we took that and had ourselves a meeting!

iwh

also, i'm dying to know! the meeting could still be there and maybe you just didn't find it.

where i live, many churches and buildings have low-key entrances and the meetings have discreet signs.

i am speaking from experience here.

there have been a few meetings that i had to search around the building for after finding the location & one that i just called it quits on, but someone told me and i went back and found.

i'm not BSing anyone on my finding meetings experience.
it seems common here, but i live in city area, i have no idea what it's like to look for meetings outside of that.
i can say the list of meetings itself put me off for years, trying to figure out which one to go to as i was drunk, but eventually, 'just go to a meeting' kicked in.