Meetings the importance

Are they as important to you today as they were in the beginning?

And do you feel we need them forever? Or you need them forever.

Meetings are important to me, today.

They help me remember things I need to remember.

I think my Higher Power speaks to me in every meeting I attend.

Love,

Sam

Meetings were and are very important to me as a base point of my recovery life. When I got to a point in my illness that I could no longer leave the house without assistance about a year ago I tried to go to meetings and found myself unable to attend them without having severe affects on my health that also affected others during the meetings creating distractions. So I stopped going and found other means of communication. It was like a loss or death to me that was a hole. At first I thought I would never make it without a meeting. Now not so much. I can't think like that because it would be dangerous to me to do so.

I get online each day and utilize resources to read. Several times a day I will come here and just read. Posting is not always the option, but I have become dependent on things like Daily Readings to chew on throughout my day. I struggled with this tremendously at first. Thinking I was a horrible person and terrible AAer if that makes sense. Everyone always saying Meeting makers make it. Well what if you just can't make the meetings do you then not? Then one day I was reading Grapevine and read an article about a whole group of people, I can't recall the name of they referred them at this time, that went to the conventions every year and that was it. Never a meeting otherwise. Many of these people worked all alone somewhere off at sea or have disabilities like myself that just can't get there. They communicate with others through letters, the internet now, phone calls, or low and behold the turn their lives over to their Higher Power and work the program each day. It gave me hope again. It helped me keep going when some days I felt like I wasn't the model person I once was.

The worse part of not going is not seeing people face to face though. It was my hour for me. Hubby would drop me off, until he started taking me, and I would go share and absorb. Then the whole family would pick me up and it was just one of those things.

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Meetings are an important part of recovery, if you choose to stay connected to the people that are like you, and can relate to practically everything you say... BUT ....................... they are not vital to my sobriety... there was a time when i thought if i wasn't in a meeting, i was gonna get drunk... if i didn't attend a certain number per week, i was gonna get drunk... if i didn't show up first for the meeting and leave last, i was gonna get drunk... and guess what happened about a thousand times while i was trying to be the perfect meeting maker, i stayed drunk... i had no spiritual connection, i had no faith... i had no belief that my sobriety was a gift from a power greater than me... i still attends meetings today on occasion, but if i miss one or two, i don't believe it'll get me drunk! thanks for the topic, it's a good one.