Why Meetings?

Chris here from the recovery world of Cadre. And today I want to talk about why meetings? Why AA meetings, NA meetings, why any meetings? I hear an awful lot of complaints about meetings, don't do anything for me. And it feels like a cult. And AA seems crazy, and I hear all, and God is all in the. In the text, and it drives me crazy, makes me uncomfortable. I think it's really, really, really important to understand that there are bigger reasons to go to meetings. There are way bigger reasons to go.

The number one reason is that's where the people are, and you need the people. In the beginning of your first year of recovery, you need people more than you need anything else. And if you think about it, in the using life, we isolated intentionally to be able to use the way we did. So the opposite of that, the medicine of recovery is engage, engage, engage with others, and that's where they are. So the infinite amount of connections and possibilities of meeting people and the awareness that you're not all by yourself in this thing is huge in AA.

And if you just take that from it and don't get caught up in the God stuff or some of the language from the thirties when the book was written, and just focus on people, I'm not alone. I am doing something about my recovery by sitting in this uncomfortable chair right now. That's a win. That's a huge win. So people make progress in change when they surround themselves with others who have already done it, period. You want to learn a language. You want to learn to play the guitar. You got to find somebody who already knows it.

This is the actual most concentrated medicine of recovery, especially in those first years, is this modeling and learning and being aware and just being in the conversation. And you get to be in it in a more concentrated version at these meetings, the after party or the goat, what they refer to as fellowship. The after party, what they refer to as fellowship. Go to the pizza place after the meeting or the coffee shop before. That's just as important. Just as important. So if the God thing gets you hung up, just remember or understand that it hangs up a lot of people.

It hangs up a lot of people. In fact, it's probably one of the biggest blocks you hear from people about why they won't go. But if you think about it in the using world, again, we make conscious decisions to stay out of relationships and contexts that are good for us, because you can't use in those contexts. You can't shoot heroin every day and be at the family picnic. You can't, you know, drink like a handle of vodka every day. And get yourself out of your house or out of your closet. So when it comes to that really thick twelve step, sometimes God, sometimes the context, I think about religion, maybe, that people get hung up on.

Think about this. The third step in the twelve steps is one of the most godly steps. I spoke at a meeting. I think there was about 150 people there once years ago. And I got up on the microphone and I said, here's the third step. Want friends? Don't be an a******. End of story. Sat down. To me, that's the distillation of what is an incredible concept of watch how you behave and how you react to the world in order to get back what you need. So go to meetings, go to lots of meetings. Go to a lot of meetings before you complain about going to meetings, because you can't complain about something that you don't know about.

Contempt prior to investigation is right out of the big book. And I am not a big book thumper. So go to meetings. Go to a lot of meetings. And if you hate it, get over it, okay? Because you need those people. Really, really, really need those people. Good luck, folks.