Meeting makers make it, or do they?
A UK AA member goes to America
When I was about nine years into my recovery, I had an opportunity to go to the US on a cultural exchange program. In the meetings in New York, I first heard the expression, “Meeting makers make it.” I knew what it meant. Right from day one, I had always been very driven about going to meetings. I must have attended close to 180 meetings in my first 90 days.
Upon arriving in the US, I felt reassured that my American brothers and sisters in fellowship all seemed to attend as many meetings as I did. Many of them seemed to believe that recovery from alcoholism was contingent on going to as many meetings as possible. We were obviously on the same page!
I ended up staying in Manhattan for a while. Even though I was stir-crazy, I had the time of my life in NYC. I went from meeting to meeting and thoroughly enjoyed meeting some of the colorful members of the NY fellowship. You will find the real America in the rooms of any twelve-step program. I felt right at home in the meetings on the Lower East Side and the 14th Street workshop.
A meetings junkie that can’t stay sober
Like most of us, I have always had an addictive personality. When I first put down the alcohol, I replaced it with a whole host of new addictions: food, sex, and codependent relationships, to name but a few. Despite all these crutches, I still wasn’t able to stay sober.
In my early days, I once remember putting together five years of abstinence from alcohol. It was a grim, white-knuckle sobriety. I was constantly depressed and angry. Was this the dry-drunk people in AA who were talking about it? How did I deal with it? I just went to more meetings.
I soon discovered that if I went to enough meetings, I could stay sober for long periods. That’s why I liked the expression “meeting makers make it.” I didn’t realize that, in the first instance, this expression was for the newcomer’s benefit, not someone who had been in the fellowship for nearly a decade.
Untreated alcoholism
There was no way I could have gotten a sponsor and worked the steps, even if I had wanted to. Too much had happened to me in my early life to overcome my resentment toward God and religion. I had some pretty negative experiences with my foster mother, who was super religious, and then later at a religious boarding school run by catholic priests.
Moreover, no amount of sex, power, money, or therapy would relieve me of the hatred in my heart and obsessive resentment in my head. In that sense, many things Bill said in the Big Book made perfect sense. His description of my alcoholism was near perfect, with or without a drink.
“Resentment is the number one offender. It destroys more alcoholics than anything else. From it stem all forms of spiritual disease” (BB “How it Works” p. 64”)
……”nor do twisted thinking and depression vanish in a twinkling” (BB “The Family afterward” p. 133)
“The primary fact we fail to recognize is our total inability to form a true partnership with another human being.” (12&12 “Step four” p. 53)
“How dark it is before the dawn’” (BB “Bill’s story” p. 8)
“He will be at the jumping off place. He will wish for the end.” (BB “Vision for you” p. 152)
Shockingly, that’s how I was after twenty-five years in AA, without a sponsor, with no serious attempt at going through the 12 steps, all this while going to two meetings a day!
When the student is ready, a teacher will appear
Someone asked me if I would host a Polish guest who had been invited to London to speak at an AA convention. He was to discuss the Twelve Traditions. I had a spare room in my flat, and being bilingual, I said yes without hesitation. ‘Witold’ (pronounced Vitold) arrived from Poland. Some Polish AA members picked him up at the airport and dropped him off at my flat. I remember being in a deep depression at the time.
In Poland, Witold is considered an old-timer. He has sponsored numerous AA members and is well-versed in the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions. I also attended the convention and enjoyed hearing Witold and other Polish members share their experience, strength, and hope.
Before flying back to Poland, I asked him for his number. I called him the very next day. It had been a long time since I had a sponsor, and I intuitively felt that I could trust Witold. I certainly respected him and his recovery. He gladly agreed to sponsor me and suggested we meet weekly on Skype.
A complete revelation
We met online within a few days. Witold asked me a few questions to gauge my progress in my recovery. I proudly told him how involved I was in meetings. Most days, I told him, I attended two groups a day. There was a long pause. “After the length of time you have been in the fellowship, you attend too many meetings.”
I was shocked. It was the first since coming to AA that a sponsor had told me that I was going to too many meetings. “For someone with your length of time in AA, you should be going to no more than two meetings a week.” Concerning AA’s program of action, I gradually learned that it’s all about quality, not quantity.
“The road of happy destiny” (BB p. 164)
All of my agnostic-friendly sponsors helped me to understand that I do not have to believe in the religious idea of a monotheistic God to recover from alcoholism. I could use Group Of Drunks – an acronym for GOD or AA itself – as a higher power while working through the twelve steps. A nontheistic spiritual awakening is just as valid as a belief in the traditional religious idea of God.
Yes, ‘meeting makers make it’ possible for newcomers to stay sober. Ultimately, the purpose of the AA program is to recover from alcoholism through love and service to others, but just as importantly, to cross the bridge to normal living. I am very grateful to Witold for teaching me this.
In fellowship,
Andy F
