SonOfSamwise
11-27-2006, 11:25 PM
:D
Too Many Meetings? Balance is the Key.
When the frequency of attending meetings becomes a concern, remember, balance is the key.
Old habits die hard, and most of us drank everyday.
At first we should make meetings everyday.
Meeting attendance should be developed into a habit.
We should go daily, long enough to establish a sober social environment in and out of meetings (this could take a year or more.)
Long enough, that is, to weave ourselves into the fabric of the fellowship.
Our sobriety should be stable.
We should be working the program and staying in regular contact with sponsors and sober friends.
When our habits for this type of spiritual development are stable, then it is time to visualize balance.
God speaks to us through program people, and through other folks as well.
We have spouses, children, parents and other responsibilities that need our attention as well.
Neglect in any of these important areas is not a measure of true recovery.
Indeed, neglect in these important areas, however subtle at first, is a measure of relapse as much as neglecting meetings, neglecting sober folks, and neglecting to work the program are measures of relapse too.
Meeting attendance should not evolve into an escape from these other important responsibilities.
The 12 Steps is a program of spiritual development to treat a spiritual malady.
Allowing meetings to become an escape – like alcohol and drugs were an escape – will cause subtle erosion in spiritual benefit.
When this happens, we teeter on the edge between recovery on one hand and stoking the fires of character defects (and possibly another addiction) on the other.
Most members in stable recovery have one mandatory home-group meeting per week they never miss and one-to-three other elective meetings they frequent each week as well.
The single, mandatory home group meeting should be missed in only the most unavoidable of circumstances (e.g. death, jail, you get the picture.)
For those whose home group meets five-to-seven-days-per-week, if you miss the Monday meeting you committed yourself to attend, you can always catch up on Tuesday, Wednesday or Friday.
For those whose home group meets only once-a-week, the single mandatory home group meeting is the only meeting you can really “miss.”
But, in the interim, you can always go to one of the elective meetings in town that week.
And you can always call your sponsors and friends.
Set a home group day and don’t miss it.
Set days you can handle for the electives without interfering in your outside life and do your best to stick to them.
Although you can’t really “miss” an elective meeting, every reasonable effort should be made to attend the one-to-three elective meetings every week.
It’s hard to “miss” a meeting when you have a weekly balance.
------------------------------
Faith is the invisible spearhead of all spiritual development.
:35:
.
Too Many Meetings? Balance is the Key.
When the frequency of attending meetings becomes a concern, remember, balance is the key.
Old habits die hard, and most of us drank everyday.
At first we should make meetings everyday.
Meeting attendance should be developed into a habit.
We should go daily, long enough to establish a sober social environment in and out of meetings (this could take a year or more.)
Long enough, that is, to weave ourselves into the fabric of the fellowship.
Our sobriety should be stable.
We should be working the program and staying in regular contact with sponsors and sober friends.
When our habits for this type of spiritual development are stable, then it is time to visualize balance.
God speaks to us through program people, and through other folks as well.
We have spouses, children, parents and other responsibilities that need our attention as well.
Neglect in any of these important areas is not a measure of true recovery.
Indeed, neglect in these important areas, however subtle at first, is a measure of relapse as much as neglecting meetings, neglecting sober folks, and neglecting to work the program are measures of relapse too.
Meeting attendance should not evolve into an escape from these other important responsibilities.
The 12 Steps is a program of spiritual development to treat a spiritual malady.
Allowing meetings to become an escape – like alcohol and drugs were an escape – will cause subtle erosion in spiritual benefit.
When this happens, we teeter on the edge between recovery on one hand and stoking the fires of character defects (and possibly another addiction) on the other.
Most members in stable recovery have one mandatory home-group meeting per week they never miss and one-to-three other elective meetings they frequent each week as well.
The single, mandatory home group meeting should be missed in only the most unavoidable of circumstances (e.g. death, jail, you get the picture.)
For those whose home group meets five-to-seven-days-per-week, if you miss the Monday meeting you committed yourself to attend, you can always catch up on Tuesday, Wednesday or Friday.
For those whose home group meets only once-a-week, the single mandatory home group meeting is the only meeting you can really “miss.”
But, in the interim, you can always go to one of the elective meetings in town that week.
And you can always call your sponsors and friends.
Set a home group day and don’t miss it.
Set days you can handle for the electives without interfering in your outside life and do your best to stick to them.
Although you can’t really “miss” an elective meeting, every reasonable effort should be made to attend the one-to-three elective meetings every week.
It’s hard to “miss” a meeting when you have a weekly balance.
------------------------------
Faith is the invisible spearhead of all spiritual development.
:35:
.