The meeting after the meeting.

[Humblepie]

I'm sure time spent after an AA meeting is helpful for people with some good sobriety time.

It is however essential for the newcomer.

I hear good stuff at every meeting I go to, there is always something I need to hear that day. Sometimes I talk a little and I find being honest and sharing to be a useful tool however if I don't stick around for a bit after the meeting I am missing out on an important part of the fellowship. If I am the first one out of the door then I don't make friends in the rooms of AA and there isn't much of a fellowship for me. I stay out on the fringes of AA, alone. Alone doesn't work for me, if it did I wouldn't be here.

How do I stay sober? Work the steps. How do I work the steps? Get a sponsor. How do I get a sponsor? In the meeting after the meeting.

[analogjack]

This whole notion of fellowship confuses me immensely. I am a newcomer and not a new comer. That is to say, I have been clean only a few months, but this is my third time in the past 17 years. I am a long time member of AA and NA and have probably spent half of the last 17 years clean, in sizable chunks.

I have always lost my mental health and spirituality and pushed myself back out to using eventually.

A lot of the answer to the riddle is not being able to connect well with people (a little of the answer is I have other mental health issues that are being more adequately addressed these days).

I hear people talk about fellowship, the 12 step "family", the fellowship outside of meetings, and the deep friendship bonds that exist for them.

I don't have the same experience. i find it very difficult to meet people and approach people, i find most people already arranged into friendship groups that aren't exactly welcoming new people. i find so many people I have invested in over the years to be deeply unreliable and sometimes downright hurtful. I reached a point where i just didnt like people and then bagan to realise that i was looking for friends in a club that only accepts self-absorbed, mentally unhealthy, spiritually bankrupt people for membership, and no wonder I was having such a hard time.

But I think more, it must be something with me. i am not good at trusting, bonding. i am not good at the rituals people do in getting acquainted. A counsellor told me not that long ago, that i have a very intense personality, and that many people won't care for it and i needed to accept that. he also said that intense personality is where my greatest strengths lie and some people will very much appreciate me for who i am.

But I feel tired, and lonely. and i feel like an outsider in the place where everyone else seems to say, 'i always felt like an outsider until i came here'.

And it is hard. i have been going through a bad time of cravings, using thoughts, using fantasies. i want to lean on the fellowship, i want inspriation, i want support. my life is going pretty well, all things considered, except for a shortage of people in my life, which is always the story of my life. but despite my life trundling on at a good pace in recovery, the addiciton inside me is screaming and screaming.

I have become so cynical about fellowship, and I bristle with bitterness whenever i hear someone bring it up. i don't know how to let all that go, i don't know how to transform into a different person who assimilates into a community in a constructive and rewarding way.

I think I am a good person and have a lot to offer, but i have bouts of despair, that I am never going to get any good at life on life's terms.

anyways, thanks for listening, whoever is reading this.

[dalin]

Time takes time brother.
My entire personnality was built on a lie.
For me personaly,I am still working hard at trying to fit in.
I know that I did earn my chair in here,and part of my responsibility
is to work at fitting in.All my character defects and survival skills work
hard at alienating me from the pack.
I know that I was the black sheep in my family,but when I got here
I found the rest of the flock..
Tradition one tells me I fit.
It isnt natural,but it falls on me to ease my way in.

[admin]

Some of the best meetings I have been to were the meetings after the meeting. I still have those today. Now they are also on the phone or online. :1: Heck, there may be somedays where I probably just about stay in a meeting the whole day with phone and internet access. :1: :11: