MEETINGS

Definition of Meetings:
A situation when two or more people meet, by chance or arrangement.

Synonyms of Meetings:
Assembly, gathering, convention, conclave, encounter, get-together, rendezvous, etc.

These notes are from recovery in AA and/or related 12 step programs.
Readers are encouraged to click external links for more detail.
We hope you find them helpful.

Love in fellowship.

Many meetings, many chances; few meetings, few chances; no meetings, no chances. The trouble with staying home and isolating is I get a lot of bad advice. –Pocket Sponsor | More…

Meetings offer us identification with where we’ve been and where we can go
identification we can’t do without and can’t get anywhere else. –Just For Today | More…

Learning to let go does not mean to stop caring. It means that you cannot do it for someone else. Only you can listen, go to meetings, follow the steps. –Hour to hour | More…

Let it be known that Alcoholics Anonymous makes no demands on anyone. Those that enter are free to leave.

Those that leave are free to re-enter. Those that remain, REMAIN SOBER!! –Heard in a meeting-Rockville, MD (Krista A)

No day needs to go by without the relief we get only from the fellowship of recovery. As we mature in recovery, we get benefits from regular meeting attendance.

Regardless of how long we’ve been clean, we never stop being addicts. True, we probably won’t immediately start using mass quantities of drugs if we miss our meetings for a few days.

But the more regularly we attend NA meetings, the more we reinforce our identity as recovering addicts.  And each meeting helps put us that much further from becoming using addicts again. –Just For Today | More…

No matter how hectic our schedule, we make meeting attendance our priority. –Just For Today | More…

The way to remain a productive, responsible member of society is to put our recovery first Let’s think about this.  Before coming to Narcotics Anonymous, could we stay clean on our own?

Can we live and enjoy life without effective treatment for our disease?  No. “Ordinary” people may not have to worry about such things, but we’re not “ordinary” people—we’re addicts.

We can’t pretend we don’t have a fatal, progressive illness, because we do. Without our program, we may not survive to worry about the demands of work, school, family, or anything else.

Meetings give us the support and direction we need to recover from our addiction, allowing us to live the fullest lives possible. –Just for Today | More…

Each day we turn a new page in our recovery, and we grow more settled in our new life. We need to remember our old behavior is still a part of us.

We may still be paying the consequences for it, with legal or health problems. We may still feel remorse over our actions.

And we need to remember that our addiction did not end simply because we stopped using our drug of choice. We could relapse at any time if we aren’t careful and don’t work our program.

We could replace our old addictive behaviors at any time with equally unhealthy new ones that may be harder for us to see. This is why we keep going to meetings.

This is why we need our sponsor, our other program friends, and our Higher Power. Recovery is active. When we are working at it, we are recovering. –Body, Mind, and Spirit/Hazelden | More…

Through going to meetings and listening, and occasionally speaking, through doing Twelfth Step work, whereby in helping others you are both the teacher and the student, by making many wonderful AA friends, I have been taught all the things in life that are worth having. –Big Book p.416 | More…

Meetings – sharing of time – can be with the full range of our existence. A tree, a lake, a mountain, the stars meet with us in solitude and enlarge our lives.

We meet a neighbour, a person walking down the sidewalk, a driver in the next car. Each meeting inspires different responses in us.

With some, we may be open and receiving; with others, fearful; and yet with others, we want to exploit and use. If all life is meeting, perhaps I do not wish to meet in the way I have been.

The way I meet others changes me. I can have more life by making more contact. –Touchstones | More…

I am still amazed, after years of recovering, at how easily I can begin to talk myself out of attending meetings. I am also still amazed at how good I feel when I go. –Anonymous

There is nothing as invigorating as getting back on track. Going to a meeting can accomplish that. –The Language of Letting/Melody Beattie | More…

We attend meetings for a variety of reasons. Sometimes we go to meetings to share our experience, strength, and hope with newer members. Sometimes we go to see our friends. And sometimes we go just because we need a hug. Occasionally we leave a meeting and realize that we haven’t really heard a word that’s been said—but we still feel better. The atmosphere of love and joy that fills our meetings has kept us clean another day. No matter how hectic our schedule, we make meeting attendance our priority. –Just For Today | More…