"Like many of those little one-liners etc that we hear in AA, this saying can also be taken out of context and misused.

My favourite is the one when some person who is prevaricating in relation to Step 4 grins inanely and says 'Well, as the Big Book says - 'sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly' and all the sheep baa, because they know no better.

When that 'meeting makers make it' thing gets dragged out in a meeting, it usually means just one thing - the newcomer now believes that meetings are the answer to alcoholism and the person who says it leaves believing they have just carried a message."


I like it when people say in meetings that the 4th Step is hard. I think that most of the people who say that the the 4th Step is hard are the ones who having done one. Then you have the making amends to yourself crowd, and the "Except when to do so would harm them or others and my sponsor said that I'm others." bunch. Then you have the "I know it works but I don't know how it works" people.

Seriously, I sat in meetings for six months, getting worse by the day. At six months away from a drink, I was page 52 embodied. I didn't want to drink, but couldn't see going on one more minute in that condition. When I'd mention it in meetings, they would give me cliches or tell me to read page 449 or something. If one more well-meaning person would have said "This too shall pass," I was gonna grab them by the throat, because it wasn't passing.

"I know of no other place where one can hear a message of hope than at an AA meeting."

Not necessarily. It was at about six months sober that I had begun to notice a guy that I had know when we were both drinking. In fact, we wouldn't even drink together because we hated each others guts at one time. He had gotten sober a few years before me and we were both working at the same place. I noticed how much he had changed, how different he was. So one day I asked him about it. I knew that he was sober and went to AA meetings. He said "Come to Everett with me on Friday night and I'll introduce you to some people." One of them was his sponsor who became my first sponsor.

I saw a message before I heard one.

I still say that if you researched the number of meetings attended by members with say 20 years sobriety , you'd be hard pressed to argue against meetings. This research thing is a technique called science, some of you don't seem to have heard about it.

Personally i was advised Meetings are for" Untreated Alcoholism" that is where I find the Solution...someone willing to help me gain sobriety thru step -work , participation and understanding....then while I'm being treated , meetings are a place to pass on hope...In explaining How it was I got sick (Alcoholism) and how it was I reached out for a solution , to the root of my Problem (finding out how I got the way i was) and addressing it,,,It was really pure mechanics....Help...Action and understanding and passing The solution back to those , just as i was "Without hope or a Solution"...That was What meetings afforded me Truth and Action...and a safe harbor in which to Anchor while I was being treated...
Billy

One thing you don't seem to grasp dontread, is that I'm not arguing against meetings.

I'm arguing against advising the newcomer that meetings are the answer. I honestly don't think that you've read a single one of my posts.

>>> This research thing is a technique called science, some of you don't seem to have heard about it. "

There is a big difference between correlation and causation. Recovered members do go to meetings (sometimes lots of meetings) but the they don't NEED meetings.

Jim said once that if AA were to disappear for some reason he would find a way to stay sober without meetings and I feel the same way. Meetings did not get me sober, meetings do not keep me sober but I do feel compelled to carry a message to other alcoholics and meetings are one of the easiest venues for me to do so.

Those who still NEED meetings are doing so because the band-aids they use to stay sober fall off fast and are not reliable in rough going.

I can say that my hillbilly roots are the soultion but I also can offer no proof. I believe in the suggested steps, but in the begining meetings are the newcomers lifeline and even now I need them to best practice the program

My ESH:-

In my neck of the words, I would honestly say that newcomers are given the wrong message.

Many are told to do 90 in 90 and that is what many newcomers aspire to do. The result? Many drink at the end of it. Why? They have filled time yet not done any listening/identifying. Many seem to have a grudge at doing it yet 'want' to achieve this.

They have not found a sponsor. They have not started the steps.

To me, step makers (doers) make it.

Thank god for DS and for me being given a clear message in that I needed to get a sponsor. I sure wasn't hearing that in my early meetings.

Now, when I hear a newcomer in the room, I share passionately about getting a sponsor and getting on with the steps.

If sitting on my ass bitching about my life was all it took to keep me sober I would never have started drinking! therefore I needed a spiritual experience or personality change to recover from alcoholism, I cant get thatfrom listening to someone whine on about their crap for an hour and a half every night, meeting makers can stop drinking but there a long way away from sobriety and recover, In my humble opinion!

Apparently you go to so poor meetings Blues, cause that's not what mine are like.

M8

WTG!!! Great share and spot on!

Hey DT how come if your meetings are so great you need so many????

How many is enough Serenity?