They don't get to hear about what happens to people who stop going to meetings.

My Dad has been sober a long time, when I tried for a long time to stop unsuccessfully, he kept encouraging me to never give up. It really was his only message to me. It helped.

I attend regularly, in state and when I travel out of for work. Over the years I've gotten to really know people from all over the country as a result. Good people.

Congrats on finding what you needed and thanks for sharing about it.

My meetings were for adult children of alcoholics. Anorexia took me there at the suggestion of my psychologist. Anorexia that landed me in the hospital twice by the time I was 24. Anorexia that I almost succumbed to but didn’t. I went to the meeting because I wanted to show my therapist that I didn’t need any stinking meeting or anybody else for that matter. Anorexics often thrive on the high of not needing anything from anybody. I walked my 80 pound badass self into that meeting and hated it. It was at that meeting that somone challenged me in a way that I’d never been challenged. I kept going back for a couple of years and kept going to therapy and I got a better handle on my life and how to separate from my folks. It was a long slow slog. I go back to therapy ever couple years for a year or two and then get back to living. I’m back in it now and have been since the election in 2016. I don’t go to the meetings anymore...my parents are long gone but those relationships and interactions from those I got to know at the meetings changed me and my perspective on what it means to belong to a group of people who can help each other through intense pain, longing, hardship and shame with no judgement...people who are willing to lean into all of that. 30 years later, I’m grateful for where I was and where I am. Some days it is still a battle. Some days I’m cruising....like anybody else I guess.

Adult Children of Alcoholics (and dysfunctional families). I also go regularly to AA meetings, have since 2008, though some of us at ACOA are also alcoholics, others are not. And some had alcoholic parents, others simply came from dysfunctional households. And in my particular group, most of us are older and no longer dealing with these issues on a daily basis - but we still live with the repercussions and deal with them there.

I also attended OA when I first got sober. My sponsor had overeating issues, so initially she took me to all kinds of meetings that she found the most helpful. And though my problem wasn't overeating, when I drank I didn't eat, lost a dangerous amount of weight so I did have eating issues, too.

I've also gone to outside therapy, many of us have. But I've always found it helpful to meet and listen to those who are dealing with or have dealt with similar issues. In AA, we call it "sober support," but the same principle holds for other 12-step programs. And, following my sponsor's lead, I now make the effort to give back what was so freely given to me. I'll be celebrating my 10-year sobriety date next month, but I keep going back because I still need to give it way to keep it.

Last edited Sun Apr 21, 2019, 09:44 AM - Edit history (2)

we are not all the same, and each of us is just as right or wrong in deciding what is best for ourselves as anybody else.

I increasingly felt that a program based on endless proselytization about a prayer-answering favor-dispensing deity was just not helpful to me. How could people believe that some cosmic loving Santa Claus is looking out for wealthy American alcoholics while millions of children starve? (I'm sorry, but that was the kind of obtuseness that I heard at most meetings).

Your meetings may have been entirely different, and thank goodness. I've noticed that there is an enormous difference between meetings locally and regionally, based on what's been described to me, and my limited experience outside of Twin Cities meetings.

But that's just me. Its up to each of us to decide -- what kind of meetings -- secular or deity-spiritualism or not -- ativan or not -- prozac or not -- etc.

Each of us is free and welcome and encouraged to share what works for each of us. Its just that when some particular path is pushed on me as being the only right way or the only way that works -- that's when my hackles get hackled up. Especially when it involves some deity that is some errand boy doing favors for wealthy American alcoholics while millions starve.

The secret's on the back of the Welcome chip.

Still true.