DOs & DON'Ts of Twelve Step Meetings

[Jabberwocky]

This post deserves its own sticky. What are some of your meeting DOs & DON'Ts?

Great point! Addicts are master manipulators as we have to be in order function and feed the addiction. I have some personal rules for dealing with other addicts that I will share with you, though I'm not saying to adopt them for yourself, just things to be aware of.

1. Always be on alert with other people in recovery, they may relapse and their relapse shouldn't become your relapse.

2. Do NOT get romantically involved while you're in early recovery, do NOT get romantically involved with someone else who is in early recovery (less than a year, ideally two years)...see rule one. Some sexual predators troll meetings looking for targets - they don't even have addiction issues but know that people in early recovery don't always have the best clarity or foresight.

3. Do not bring people from meetings to your house or let them know precisely where you live (this was more personal because I was financially stable and a homeowner and didn't want to be a target or try to have someone move in because I had spare bedroom etc).

4. Be very careful who you let in your car as they could be carrying drugs and you don't want their charges to be your charges.

5. Do not loan out anything of value, including money that you want to be repaid or your vehicle.

6. Treat everyone in meetings as if they have alterior motives, addicts are very self interested by nature. While many do genuinely have big hearts and are good people in bad circumstances, many are not good people and will manipulate and take advantage.

7. Their drama is not your drama...if someone is calling you in a relapse keep your distance, do not get sucked in, you're life (sobriety) is at stake. You don't need phone calls at all hours of the night, nor do you need to be the keep of someone else's court, baby, friend, spouse drama. Feel free to meet and discuss their issues at a reasonable time of day over coffee for an hour but no emergency meetings, no late night meetings, etc. If domestic violence is involved give them the number to the hotline, by you getting involved you could become a target yourself.

8. If somebody is actively using do not spend any time with them. Adopt a no tolerance policy. NA is one of the best places to make connections to get substances. Dealers are not very obvious when they are networking a meeting, they put out benign feelers.

I have others but those are the main ones. I know I sound very cold but I didn't randomly pick these out of thin air, they unfortunately came from experience. Your goal in early recovery is to minimize any and all drama in your life and unfortunately, many addicts have a lot of drama that follows them in early recovery. My life's experience has taught me to plan for the worst but hope for the best, and to do damage control before it's needed. I no longer put myself at risk.

 

[Strike Alight]

Me personally, I try to stay as separated as possible from the people I meet in groups, here are some of the rules I have set myself:

1. Don't let anyone know where you live or work. People know my line of work and the area I live in for context sake but nothing more.

2. Don't make friends outside of group, as in, people I meet in meetings are strictly 'group/meeting friends' only. I refuse to integrate any of them into my normal life. (I have broken this rule with one person who has been my sponsor since the beginning)

3. When discussing experiences leave out specifics, people can use information to manipulate you and knowledge is power.

4. Be selective with who you give your phone number (and any other details for that matter) to. A few members have mine as I have offered myself for support phone calls (but it stops at phone calls). However, the last thing I want is my phone number getting caught up in anything.

5. Do not loan anything you expect to get back.

Obviously there is no right and wrong way, but I have an inherent distrust for addicts. Being one myself I know exactly the type of people I'm dealing with...

 

[Jabberwocky]

Thank you for your contribution Strike Alight!

 

[d3athadone]

whats the point of the group if these people r like enemies. This is why I don't go to NA. too much craziness. I got enough of addicts in my personal life lol

 

[Strike Alight]

whats the point of the group if these people r like enemies. This is why I don't go to NA. too much craziness. I got enough of addicts in my personal life lol

The point is support. I treat them as friends and consider them as friends. That does not mean I am going to risk my recovery, or my livelihood on hoodlums like myself.

We go to recover, and seek support through recovery. Nowhere is it implied we are going to become best friends, hence no integration.

 

[Jabberwocky]

whats the point of the group if these people r like enemies. This is why I don't go to NA. too much craziness. I got enough of addicts in my personal life lol

This is pretty much how I feel. I had one too many bad experiences with twelve step stuff so I went elsewhere IRL for my support.

 

[Moreaux]

whats the point of the group if these people r like enemies. This is why I don't go to NA. too much craziness. I got enough of addicts in my personal life lol

Within the rooms most are great people with a lot of insight into recovery...unfortunately outside of the rooms some have deep rooted issues and drama that they are still working to resolve.

 

[subotai]

Do

-understand that every meeting is going to be different

-realize that if someone is speaking to the meeting, they are doing it on their own time. Least you can do is be respectful and thank them for speaking, even if what you are about to talk about has nothing to do with what they spoke on

-if you are going to share about something, try to at least have an idea of where you are going with it. I understand not everyone is a modern day Cicero, especially when dealing with emotional problems, but my god is it frustrating to hear someone repeat the same thing a solid 5-6 times just phrased slightly differently. Sounds cold on my part but has to do with next point...

-there's other people at the meeting. If you share about something, be mindful that other people may have things they need to get out as well. And it might make you realize that losing your Ray Ban sunglasses at Starbucks is a relatively small problem to have

Dont

-repeatedly get up to get coffee, food, bathroom, w/e in the middle of the meeting. Probably things you should have taken care of beforehand. Alternatively, if you really feel the need to drink 4 cups of coffee in an hour (addict behavior?), maybe grab a chair next to the fucking coffee pot instead of on the exact opposite side of the room.

-blatantly be browsing social media the whole time while people are sharing. Was the cat video really worth it?

- share what you want to get out, then leave the meeting right after you finish sharing. No words for this one, why not just grab someone waiting in line at Chipoltle like I don't get that at all

- more of a personal pet peeve but I'm not a fan of people with put out cigs in their ear.

- another personal pet peeve but I hate when people talk about how they "sold drugs" and are addicted to the lifestyle. Real drug dealers wouldn't tell a roomful of people they don't know that they sold drugs for a living.

- I hate when people say "I'm comfortable in chaos" because I feel like it is easy to say that in an environment that is anything but chaotic. Personally, I fucking hate chaos.

 

[CfZrx]

Do- attend at least one meeting a week.

Don't- think that AA by itself will keep you sober.

 

[CfZrx]

- another personal pet peeve but I hate when people talk about how they "sold drugs" and are addicted to the lifestyle. Real drug dealers wouldn't tell a roomful of people they don't know that they sold drugs for a living.

hehe, thats for sure

 

[Burnt Offerings]

I feel that the people in anonymous meetings can usually be divided into 2 groups: the people who want to be there, and the people who don't want to be there. When I was arrested for possession they made me attend meetings and the people with "cards" represented a significant portion of seemingly every meeting I attended (in a major city where I was living at the time). To me this was one of the more significant divides in those kinds of meetings. I always just assumed that the people who were there voluntarily were not there to start drama or scheme on others, and were probably there out of a genuine interest to better themselves or help others (despite being as annoying as they often could be)...it didn't make sense why they would be there otherwise, I know as someone with a keen interest in drugs, well, attending an AA/NA meeting is about as appealing to me as going to church services would be for a militant atheist

 

[bukweat]

If you're court- ordered to attend don't ruin it for those sincerely trying. Save you snide smart ass remarks for somewhere else
I remember how difficult it was for me to open up when a newb

 

[RedLeader]

Don't go to AA and then ramble on and on about drug stuff. I've done this in the past and looking back it is pretty disrespectful.

 

[mrsnowygrainius]

dont shoot up in the parking lot of a meeting and then go into that same meeting... it really is a horrible thing to do. Because then you nod out in the meeting and when you aren't nodding you are in the best mood ever wanting to talk everyone's ear off but they all know just by taking one look at you.

 

[PriestTheyCalledHim]

Me personally, I try to stay as separated as possible from the people I meet in groups, here are some of the rules I have set myself:

1. Don't let anyone know where you live or work. People know my line of work and the area I live in for context sake but nothing more.

2. Don't make friends outside of group, as in, people I meet in meetings are strictly 'group/meeting friends' only. I refuse to integrate any of them into my normal life. (I have broken this rule with one person who has been my sponsor since the beginning)

3. When discussing experiences leave out specifics, people can use information to manipulate you and knowledge is power.

4. Be selective with who you give your phone number (and any other details for that matter) to. A few members have mine as I have offered myself for support phone calls (but it stops at phone calls). However, the last thing I want is my phone number getting caught up in anything.

5. Do not loan anything you expect to get back.

Obviously there is no right and wrong way, but I have an inherent distrust for addicts. Being one myself I know exactly the type of people I'm dealing with...

That's very good advice. I know people who are big into AA/NA and they only got close to their sponsor(s), and would only talk to their sponsors outside of group meetings or see them in person outside of a meeting.

People I know who started to hang out with people who they met at AA/NA meetings outside of the group meeting setting wound up relapsing with the other people who they met, and would go to an AA/NA meeting and meet people who after the meeting they would go out and drink or use drugs with. But the people I know who are serious about being and staying sober or clean just would go to meetings, listen or participate, and would only correspond with or stay in communication with their sponsor(s) outside of the AA/NA meeting.

Another thing that does happen in AA/NA meetings is that some people use the group meeting to meet people to date, have a relationship with, or just hook up and have sex with and that's not what AA/NA is designed for. If you are really serious about being or getting sober you will instead focus on yourself and improving yourself and not looking for people to date or sleep with when you first get sober. But what I wrote about with AA/NA members dating or hooking up does happen.

Also, NA and AA are supposed to be anonymous; but not everyone in a group meeting will adhere to this or will keep what they hear about you or others at a meeting, at the meeting or within the confines of the group of people only.

I personally have never been to AA/NA since when I was at my worst I was still using alcohol and cannabis, and at the time I was slowly cutting back and I thought it would be pointless and disrespectful to go to meetings knowing full well I was still going to drink and puff herb. Also, at the time I was living in a small town and I did not want the fact that I am an addict to be broadcasted or for people who I would see while being a full time student at a university to talk about how they had seen me at an AA/NA meeting or want to get together socially outside of a meeting.

 

[Jabberwocky]

Some wisdom from [mention]simco[/mention]:

@aihfl, I had a really terrible sponsor situation in NA as well...very much along the lines of what you describe. It left such a bad taste in my mouth that I avoided 12-step groups for over a year. When I did finally return to NA, about four months ago, it was out of desperation...I was in a bad way and needed to alleviate my pervasive feelings of alienation and loneliness. The fellowship has really helped with those particular problems. But my earlier experiences have made me very cagey about NA.

In case it helps other people, here are a few ways I've crafted my relationship with the group, to assure that it's therapeutic for me. Repeat...these are simply my own strategies. Your mileage will surely vary!

Things I do:

• I attend meetings regularly but not too often (approx 3 meetings weekly). This helps me feel connected, while helping me avoid burnout.
• At meetings, I do very small kinds of service. I make coffee; I clean up afterwards; stuff like that.
• I maintain boundaries. For example, I don't meet up with NA folks outside of meetings unless it's for a legit event.
• I try to talk on the phone or by text with a few trusted NA acquaintances more than I would normally choose to. This is one of the best antidotes for loneliness after/during addiction that I've found. I don't like doing it very much (awkward). But doing it even if I don't feel like I "need" it at the moment really seems to help. N.B. These calls are to people I've gotten to know fairly well, and who have demonstrated commitment to getting better.
• Read the literature. Sometimes the NA literature is pretty bad. But again, it does help me feel connected.
• I consider and meditate on step-work. But without a sponsor (see below), formal step-work isn't really viable.

Things I don't do:

• I don't have a sponsor. I'm really conflicted on this one. I know it's a crucial part of the program, but my previous experience has made it hard to seek out that relationship. Maybe some day I'll get a sponsor. But for now, that's not part of my deal.
• I don't give my phone number out in general. I'll give it to someone I've gotten to know. But I don't write it down for anyone to grab. I learned this the hard way after a guy started calling me wanting to cop/use, etc.
• I don't seek complete abstinence from drugs. I still use cannabis plenty. But I'm deadly serious about putting heroin behind me. (Luckily alcohol and most other drugs were never very alluring for me...easy to skip.)
• I don't let bullshit alienate me from the group. People say some stupid shit at meetings (and in the literature). Denigrating psych meds, ORT, non-NA recovery, etc...all that will drive me crazy, and drive me away from the group if I let it. I use the serenity prayer to get past moments when this kind of thing comes up . If someone says something really egregious, though, I will argue--otherwise my conscience feels violated.

Most NA members who read this list would rightly complain that I'm not "working the program" at all. And I don't dispute that. NA is a *part* of my toolkit for recovery. I use it to mitigate feelings of isolation related to drug use (and abstinence). Over time, maybe my relationship with the group will mature. I'd honestly like it if I could find someone I trust enough to seek out as a sponsor. But meanwhile, this very limited involvement seems to help.

As always, I encourage folks to tread cautiously in the land of 12-step recovery. But I also encourage folks who are even a little interested to consider giving it a chance, keeping in mind that you always need to keep your head with you when it comes to recovery.