In my experience I have found the above to be true. The fellowship and meetings are helpful but without a spiritual awakening as a result of the 12 Step programme - and without giving up reliance upon my faulty thinking and depending rather on God's will for me - nothing could relieve my alcoholism.

pretty hard to hang around AA for too long without some of it rubbing off though?

When I first came to AA I entered into one of those nice back-slapping ones - you know the ones I mean. You ask how to get well, tell people you're barely holding on, you're scared and they slap you on the back in that patronising way that they do and they say that well worn saying 'Lyn, just keep coming back ... and don't pick up the first drink.'

I went to many, many meetings, got involved in service, spoke at meetings, was on the 12 step lists in 3 areas BUT I picked up three years later. WHY????

Because like OIT said 'Meeting makers don't make it.' - What I needed and was literally dying for was the solution to the problem of alcoholism - the 12 step programme of recovery. I had spent 3 years hanging on to sobriety by the skin of my teeth - it was a horrible experience and the psychic pain unbearable.

I ended up in treatment and finally I was told that the steps were the solution and I embraced it with all the vigour of a drowning person (because I was one) and I have never seriously wanted to drink since that time because I experienced the promised spiritual awakening. I continue to live using the kit of spiritual tools. These days I don't get to many meetings but I am an active 12 stepper and sponsor of several women.

I know the way I prefer!!

DT you know things don't always 'rub-off' on people if there is no one there for anything to rub off of!! :)

If all I was told about driving a car was where I should sit, I probable would have had about a thousand accidents before I figured out how to drive safely.

I think the jest of Bill's letter is that "Faith" is the real solution. Something I occasionally hear in meetings but it is mixed in with about a b-zillion other tricks&tips that don't have anything to do with long-term recovery.

"Giving the newcomer options is not an act of kindness"
(Clarence S.)

Meetings are important. Steps are important . But few if any will get the steps without the meetings , so I guess meeting makers DO make it afterall?

Donttread I am continually suprised at how many people can sit in meetings and not have it rub off on them. I honestly don't know how they do it but they seem to turn up at meetings and not grasp onto a single word of the solution! Someone mentions something negative and they latch onto it in seconds but something positive passes them by completely. True selective hearing I believe.

It is a package deal. But I totally agree Meetings alone do not make it. You dust the seats off with your rear and babble on, and nothing changes but the size or you bottom and a worn out chair. It is actually very simple. "Trust in God, Clean House and Carry the Message".

If we do not like Bill's letter to Clarence, find some sort of spiritual basis for living we die. And the people he is referring to working with others ardently got paid and forgot that its for free and the steps not any human power that lead us to a spiritual and daily reprieve is what keeps us from going back into our self defeating behaviors, the bottle, institutions or death. Even sober our disease progresses.

I have found the people that are in every meeting, share every meeting, have little or nothing to give unless they are in control of what they feel we must have.

There are many people that do not do meetings at all anymore. They have the tools, use them without having to demostrate to a group they are the answer to everyones problems or how A.A. works. It worked for 2 people, no others around, it works for millions the exact same way. The rooms will always be there but if the steps and the action required to keep our ISM's away are not used in our daily life, no meeting is going to save us.

At work, at play, with friends, strangers, life on lifes terms, is outside the rooms where I need it most. No where does it say in our books we are prisioners to A.A., being punished, or doomed if we do not do meetings. Same as with sponsoring, some people led their sponsoree's around for life. I cut them lose after the doing the steps, and we are friends, some I never see again.

I must be especially vigillant in not allowing A.A. or any group to become my Higher Power. The Big Book is a "Text" a learning tool. I has answers to most of my problems today concerning my obssessive, compulsive tendancies. So do many other books, that I use as referrences. But they are not what keeps me sober. Action Action and more Action, keeps me sober. And by that I do not mean obsessive action. Just applying these simple and so much easier than my best thinking could ever come up with principals in my life has changed who I am, so that I have not had to drink myself to death or use drugs until I die, or wish I were dead ever ever again.

Sadly however, some people just need to keep trying to build a better mousetrap. More has been revealed but it is not anything different than it has ever been, just that the 12 steps work for a lot of issues, maybe the whole world would benefit by these principals, and learn to live and let live and take off the God suits.

You are a member when you say so , no one else. If you feel you have earned your seat here, no one can chase you away but the rooms are just the fellowship, recovery begins and ends with working the steps.

I remember having a conversation with my sponsor over this.

I came to the conclusion that meeting makers do make it.....they go to AA, invariably are dry drunks, share about their week and are angry that they can not drink anymore. They share from when they first came in and seem to never get to the 'grateful' alcoholic stage. Growing does not seem to happen in this kind of alcoholic (not that I seem to witness).

Then there are the people who go to meetings, are working the steps and have smiles, share the solution and how life is today. They seem to grow on a daily basis and believe they are progress not perfection.

Yes, there are all types of people in our meetings as there are in life.......I just know who's sobriety I want and it is those people that I surround myself with.

You can stay sober with out going to meeting.
You can't stay sober with out the steps.

I went to AA and listened to the people in rooms, I listened to 'play the tape all the way through', 'meeting makers make it', 'whatever, just dont' pick up the first drink' and all other types of 'helpful' information.

Unfortunately I did not hear how not to pick up the first drink. Then after they told me that meeting makers make it, they told me how horrible their life was. How they sit for days struggling not to pick up the first drink, how they seem to not be at peace with themselves, how they were unhappy with their lives.

For about 6 months or so I listened to this with the very occassional reference to the steps. At the end of that time I thought if I keep going to these meetings I WILL drink so I stopped going.

It took me another 4 years to do the steps and once I did the promisses came true. I think what the gist of the message here is just going to meetings is not the answer and I refuse to say meetings makers make it to anyone.

I work with a lot of people but I go to about 2 or 3 meetings a year, you do not have to go to meetings to share your ESH, just listen to the person you are with and you soon find people in denial.

G8

I got away from the meetings for a few years and did not drink, but I didn't manage my life nearly as well. So I came back and stayed.

There is also another way of looking at this - we are back to the potentially damaging one-liners again with either statement - "meeting makers make it" or "meeting makers DON'T make it." In essence both statements contain an element of truth but the problem with catch-phrases is that they don't really explain anything or give the full picture and are therefore open to misinterpretation and this can prove quite dangerous in recovery.

It's like a post on the Alcoholism board at the moment "80% of success is showing up" and we all know (hopefully) that, in relation to sobriety, just showing up at meetings is not going to help us get a good and lasting sobriety. There is simply more to it than that.

Gailey It was a quote about focus......If you haven't noticed focus is very hard to come by.....distractions galore personally I came to AA got a sponsor Right away took the steps and started sponsoring and learning more...No treatment just AA and God and ya'lll :)
Billy

so how many of you who don't believe meeting makers make it: Got where you are without any meetings?

don You are so right