For the last month or so I have been in the grips of the insane idea that I have outgrown AA. I say it is an insane idea because 12 step recovery is the only thing that ever got me sober for any length of time. And even though the idea is insane, it may also be true. And while it may be true, there is no way to find that out without risking my recovery. I have to simply trust that my place is in meetings. My place is in meetings.
My place is in meetings.
In the 900-odd days I’ve been sober I’ve attended well over 1800 meetings. I’m well versed in what is available to me there. I feel like I’m in a place where I have to grow beyond what I hear in meetings and I haven’t the first clue about how to do that.
My rational mind knows, of course, that in all likelihood what I’m experiencing is still residual from my surgery. I spent a good amount of time on pain medication. I’m better now, but I’m still in pain. I think I’m probably depressed, too. I took the QIDS-SR and seem to be moderately depressed. I’m not really sure if I need to find a way to kick myself out of it, or if I should actually seek help. Rationally I know that depression would be consistent with my circumstance, but as with the question of spiritual path, I haven’t the first clue about what to do about that.
The thing about meetings, particularly meetings in a town this size, is that it doesn’t take long to hear everyone’s story. It doesn’t take long before you can predict what people will say. You know who works at recovery and you know who pretends to. You speculate about who is going to kill them self and who is going to kill everyone else. And when it happens there is nothing you can do about it.
At some point recently I realized that inside the rooms I am never again going to hear anything new. Sure, the details may be different; an idea may be expressed in a new way, but the idea isn’t new. The story isn’t different.
Rationally — such an elusive quality for me so much of the time, especially with regard to me and my disease and a Higher Power — rationally I know all these things. I know that my place is inside the rooms.
But I can’t seem to shake myself free of the crazy idea that I don’t need to be there.
Just for today, I’m not going to test that idea.
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I love the metaphor of the steps because sometimes they take us higher and into the light, and sometimes they take us lower and deeper into the darkness inside of us. I like to think of them as a spiral staircase, sometimes drawing me up and out, and sometimes drawing me in and down.
Do you have a good therapist? I find linking that to my recovery helps during the times the steps take me down. Talk therapy married with the steps has changed everything for me. I’m always looking for that tiny thread end of the knot that I can tug at to see things unravel and expose the real reasons that my face keeps getting pushed back into my addictions.
In my first group we had an old-timer – he had those really shifty eyes that make you wonder if he’s gonna snap and become a tower sniper – he scared the shit out of me. I almost stopped coming to meetings because of him. I had him pegged and judged and wanted nothing that he was about. I kept coming back and found that he was the richest fount of wisdom and knowledge I had yet met in my life. This was an OA group – he had been through and active in NA & AA & GA for years but began to realize that food was his last refuge of addiction – I’m so thankful I stayed and listened. It changed my life.
My meeting is the same 3 people each and every week – there is only one – and it gets really old really fast. I have learned to pray each time before I go “Okay God, I just need ONE THING, just let me hear the ONE THING that I need for this week – and make it really clear, and help me be alert enough to hear it” – and I am amazed at how the same old, same old becomes new. Sometimes I can even feel a thumb in my back pushing me forward like “Okay Heidi, this is it – pay attention”. Anyway – just my e/s/h for today. keep coming back. love you!
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I hear you. Going through the same stuff my self. No fun, no joy, lots of anger and frustration. arghhhh.
I’m trying to practice what Irish Friend of Bill is talking about. Seeking out the newcomers and inflicting myself upon them. Makes the meeting worthwhile.
“One day at a time” and “This to shall pass” are the best slogans for me. Creates a patience in me I don’t normally have for myself.
Take care.
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I hated the program sooooooo much back in 1992-94. I even found the perfect sponsor for myself, an atheist who didn’t believe in the steps and called AAs ” the moonies.” In retrospect, the most surprising thing about my relapse is probably that it took two years.
re: “I’m well versed in what is available to me there,” I don’t doubt you at all (small town here, too–sometimes I just want to say “That story isn’t funny anymore”, or “put on a new record.” I guess people like me are why they don’t allow crosstalk….)
However boring and tedious the people in the rooms may sometimes seem, I try to remind myself that they are in fact real-not shadow-people, and they are not out to get me (that I know of, lol). It may or may not be possible to die of annoyance, boredom, or ennui, but I’m willing to find out. The death I was headed for–begging for–was just pathetic.
I’m not willing to risk it. I would prefer that you not risk it either.
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Hi Chris. I’m enjoying my tour of your site. I also sometimes feel that I have outgrown meetings. But the feeling is cyclic. Because of the occasional urge for more nourishment, I have joined a discussion group where we read and discuss the NA Step Working Guides. I am fully satiated this way.
Here are the reasons I stay with my regular meetings:
We humans learn through repetition. We need to hear the same things said over and over again, in different words, so that our thought patterns may be influenced in such a way that thinking in terms of our program becomes automatic. Then, we necessarily need to continue hearing the same things, for maintenance.
Sometimes I get preoccupied and caught up with certain things and I forget to apply even the most basic and obvious principle of recovery in an area of my life. I need the meeting to pull me back on track.
I’m grateful for the support I received and still receive and feel the need to give back. It’s not just about me, it’s about the newcomer.
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