by Sally Rosa | Sep 3, 2014 | 12 Steps, Addiction Articles
Recovery Can Be Overwhelming
Getting sober is scary! We’re thrown into a new location, told to change people, places and things (this means change everything!), and begin to reach out to other sober people. We begin to experience feelings again.
Basically, we experience everything we avoided through our addiction! Fear not Ms. Freshly Sober, Sobriety For Women is here to help. We’ve whipped up a handy guide to the common types of twelve-step fellowships and twelve-step meetings. We’ve even sprinkled in some basic meeting etiquette.
Sounds like one less thing to freak out over. Now, get back to doing step work!
Alcoholics Anonymous
AA is the original twelve-step fellowship and has been around since 1935. Hmm, they’ve been around for over seventy-five years? They must be doing something right!
A common misconception about AA is that it’s only for people with a drinking problem. This isn’t the case at all. I’m a certified junkie and I go to mainly AA meetings. I work AA steps and sponsor the AA way. Just because you’re an addict, doesn’t mean you can’t go to Alcoholics Anonymous.
Here’s where that meeting etiquette I talked about earlier comes in. I don’t talk about drugs during AA meetings. When I share, I say things like “my drinking was out of control,” or “alcohol worked for me, until it didn’t!”
I swap the word drugs for alcohol and it works fine. When I’m doing step-work with a girl, well, then I’m very open about my addiction. During meetings though? I respect the house I’m in.
Plus, alcohol is only mentioned once during the twelve-steps. The rest is all about us and how we relate to other people.
Narcotics Anonymous
NA was founded in 1953 and is over sixty years old. Again, those recovering addicts must be doing something right!
NA is, generally speaking, a bit looser than AA. Obviously, you can talk freely about drugs. Don’t start telling war stories though, or you’ll get chewed out by old-timers pretty quick!
I’ve noticed, through my personal experience with NA, they generally don’t dive into the steps. They have a saying, which goes a little something like “we didn’t get sick overnight and we’re not going to get better overnight, either.”
Personally, I don’t agree with this. I think we need to start to get better right away. Still, NA works for hundreds of thousands of people. If you’re looking for a slow and steady approach, NA may be right for you!
Cocaine Anonymous
An AA old-timer founded CA in 1982. While CA is a separate fellowship from AA, they work steps from AA’s Big Book and practice AA sponsorship.
Truthfully, I haven’t been to a ton of CA meetings. The one’s I have attended are lively and solution oriented. That means members share about how to get better, rather than reminisce about drugs or booze.
CA seems to mirror AA in that members don’t need to have only a cocaine addiction. In fact, most people I’ve met at CA were opiate addicts.
Other Anonymous Fellowships
While AA, NA, and CA are the most prevalent twelve-step fellowships, there are about five thousand others. These include: Al-Anon (for those affected by someone else’s drinking), Gambler’s Anonymous (GA), Sex and Love Anonymous (SLA), Codependents Anonymous (CODA), and Overeater’s Anonymous (OA).
Types of Meetings
Within the above fellowships, there are many different types of meetings. Let’s look at some.
Open Meeting
This simply means that anyone, addict or alcoholic or otherwise, can attend. Want to bring your significant other to a meeting? Take them to an open meeting.
Closed Meeting
This means that you have to me a member to attend.
The third tradition of most twelve-step fellowships reads, “the only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking [or using].”
So, to attend closed meetings, you have to have a desire to stop destructive behavior. You don’t, and this is important so pay attention, you don’t have to identify as an addict or alcoholic.
All meetings are either open or closed. So, open and closed are sort of the macro-categories of twelve-step meetings.
Speaker Meeting
Speaker meetings are where someone speaks. Simple enough, right? In these meetings, the speaker can share their story, or speak on a particular topic.
Literature Meeting
This is a meeting where the topic is based around specific literature.
This literature can be fellowship approved (AA’s Big Book) or unapproved (AA’s “Little Red Book”).
Literature meetings can have a speaker, be a discussion meeting, or be any other type of meeting.
Discussion Meeting
These are meetings where a topic is discussed. The topic can be about anything. Common topics include gratitude, resentment, relapse, spirituality, etc.
Step Meeting
Step meetings are when the topic is one of the twelve-steps. These meetings can take the form of speaker meetings, discussion meetings, or literature meetings.
Anniversary Meeting
This is a meeting where addicts and alcoholics celebrate their sober anniversaries. Typically, the last meeting each month is an anniversary meeting. Medallions are given to anyone with a year or more. There’s cake and sweets.
Anniversary generally don’t take up the entire meeting. The rest of the meeting is whatever type of meeting it normally is.
Now that you know all about the different types of fellowships and meetings, get out there and start getting better!
by Fiona Stockard | Aug 19, 2013 | Recovery
False Evidence Appearing Real (FEAR)
Having grown up in functional alcoholism and then married into it, I spent forty-two years frightened and embarrassed. I spent forty-two years! Think about how long that is!
Al-Anon helped me recognize FEAR kept showing up because I’d become comfortable with it. FEAR was my constant companion, it was familiar territory. FEAR seemed better than venturing, all alone, into the unknown.
Lessons from Al-Anon
More than anything else, Al-Anon has taught me I’m NOT alone. I never was. Lily Tomlin once said, “we’re all in this alone,” and that was true, until I connected with my Higher Power. Guess what? My Higher Power had been there all along! It led me into the rooms of recovery. Now, I have many recovering friends and a long list of supports.
Recently, I’ve been learning something most children know by kindergarden. When life’s easy, it’s easy. When life’s hard, it’s hard. My catastrophic thinking and what-if projections find me quickly when the s**t hits the fan. If I’m listening though, my Higher Power says, “come to me, child” and I do! I run, hide, and get real quiet. I focus on entrusting the whole problem (whatever it may be) to my Higher Power’s care. It never fails to work. Time and time again, God’s proven to me that he is Truly the One in Charge!
My Higher Power tells me not to be scared, that FEAR’s just an old habit. FEAR’s just a liar who tries to whisper in my ear. I need to recognize and capture FEAR. I need to put it in one of those old Mason jars, with the clamp lid. I need to bring the jar to my Higher Power, who gladly adds it to a collection.
I’ve learned to dance the Twelve-Step waltz (one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three) everyday since 1989. Since then, I’ve captured innumerable moments of FEAR and thrown them in the Mason jar. This has been challenging the lately. My family’s been dealing with a serious medical issues. Along with talking to doctors, I’ve been talking to God! I continually write gratitude lists. Of course, as soon as I reach out to my Higher Power, things start to get better. My trust begins increasing. I can stand upright, joyous for another day in this broken world.
Evidence of my Higher Power’s love, guidance, and support is real and indisputable. Therefore, God’s Grace never fails! It actually causes me to LAUGH in the face of FEAR. When life gets tough, I remember my God sightings. I re-read my gratitude list. I crawl back under the umbrella of Step-Eleven. It seems almost too easy! Real evidence is true, and true evidence conquers false evidence, handily.
For more stories like this one, LOOK INSIDE a book on Amazon called Whit’s End by clicking here!
by A Women in Sobriety | Jul 28, 2013 | 12 Steps
Listening is the Hardest Part
Al-Anon has taught me that pray requires listening. One of our slogans is Listen and Learn. Another is Progress Not Perfection. Another is Recovery is a Verb. Okay, I made that last one up. It’s good, isn’t it!
In Al-Anon meetings, share after share builds my trust that a Higher Power is eager to help us. There’s a catch though, we need to shut up and listen. I’m learning to listen with the eye of my eyes, the ear of my ears, the heart of my heart.
Listening in Al-Anon
Prior to entering Al-Anon, my prayers had generally consisted of long litanies. They were requests from me, Whitney, to God, wherever God is. Recovery encouraged me, through first-hand testimony, that a Higher Power is absolutely able to communicate. God can speak through anything, even a donkey!
I remember one day I was folding laundry in my son’s bedroom, who was five at the time. It must have been a summer morning, because I was folding laundry while Ned was going through the gymnastics associated with obediently making his bed. I had told him before about the times I would come into his room when he was at school – either to put laundry away or to dust or something – and find that he had made his bed (very lumpy indeed but nevertheless completely made) as I had asked. It was not until this particular morning, however, that I had ever actually observed him making his bed. And when I did, it touched my heart.
His pillows were all over the floor, while he was on his mattress. He was in the exact middle, trying to flip the various layers into flatness. He was smoothing his sheets by elongating his body and moving closer to the edge, trying to work out the wrinkles and waves and lumps. It struck me that he was so sweetly obeying, really trying and trying, and without a single complaint. Everyday, he’d been struggling like this, so faithfully. To say I was touched to see his efforts is an understatement.
Next thing you know, I was crying. “Mommy!” Ned exclaimed. “What’s the matter?” To which I replied, “Nothing, Ned, it just touches my heart to see you making your bed, to see how hard you’re trying, to see all the trouble you go to just to get it done.” And then, I believe, I heard God say:
“I love the lumps.”
God sees my efforts. He looks at my heart. My little boy, Ned, had shown me what God looks like. It doesn’t matter how well I understand each and every jot and bustle. It doesn’t matter how well I teach. It doesn’t even matter how well I do.
It only matters that I try. It only matters that I Listen and Learn.
For more anecdotes like this one, LOOK INSIDE a book on Amazon called Whit’s End by clicking here
by A Women in Sobriety | Jul 20, 2013 | 12 Steps
A Voice From Al-Anon
Meetings of Al-Anon and ACA are helping me to recover myself. See, I’d wandered into a swamp of confusion and crisis. This swamp was twenty year marriage, during which I drank right alongside my handsome, fun-loving husband.
My husband and I were glamorous, or so we thought! We fancied ourselves latter day versions of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. Back in the whirlwind of our Zelda and Scott days, we tried with all our might to never grow up. Our agreed upon goal in life was to avoid ever becoming boring and staid, like our parents!
After all twenty of those years, it dawned on us that we might have a problem with alcohol. It took twenty years for me to do the math on my husband’s employment record. Twenty years to discover he’d had ten jobs, with ample downtime between gigs! It took me twenty years to enter the rooms of Al-Anon.
My Recovery
Al-Anon quickly clarified there was such a thing as functional alcoholism. This, in turn, led me into years of Denial (Don’t Even kNOw I Am Lying). I learned that alcoholism is a disease and contagious at that! My husband was affected by the alcohol part. I was affected by the “-isms” part. Let’s start with the letter A: Anger and Anxiety, and move through the alphabet to Worry and Xtreme fear! Until I entered Al-Anon, I didn’t think I had any problems! I just thought my husband kept losing his job, leaving me to keep our canoe afloat.
Al-Anon taught me I was just as much an addict as he was, except my drug-of-choice wasn’t booze. My drug-of-choice was adrenaline, which pumped through me daily (at increasingly high levels!) as my husband’s disease progressed in a downward spiral. I thank GOD for wooing my husband into the rooms of AA towards the end of 1990. Approximately fifteen minutes later, we found ourselves pregnant with child, something we (aka Zelda and Scott!) had never ever wanted.
The Serenity Prayer saved the life of our unborn child. I had been pointing to the first line, saying we needed to accept the things we could not change. My husband was pointing to the second line, saying we needed to change the things we could. Then came the afternoon he phoned from a rest stop on the Merritt Parkway, hollering into the phone:
It’s the wisdom to know the difference!
This child is half mine!
I can’t walk out on him.
Our Life
It’s now twenty-two years later and said that child is the joy of our hearts. Truly, I credit the program(s) of twelve-step recovery for saving all of our lives. I credit our meetings, sponsors, recovering friends, the steps, the literature, the slogans, and the Serenity Prayer.
Most of all, I credit the Voice of God, which managed to overcome the Committee of Our Mere Minds! As we learned to practice Step Eleven, we learned to seek through prayer and mediation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him. We learned to pray ONLY for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry it out.
It was a noisy waterfall we were headed towards when God answered us. Gently and lovingly, He spoke through earthquake, wind, and fire. He spoke a still small Voice of Calm.
For More Tips and Literature About Al-Anon Click Here!
