I've had a similar experience; for me, the end of the 1980's was the end of what I think of as my 'touchy-feeley' era in recovery. Living 'happy, joyous and free' during that time meant going to every freaking speaker-potluck and conference my home group/extended family of choice could possibly get to. Between working jobs, going back to college (now that my brain was working I could actually pull grades!), ...oh, and let's catch the Modern Jazz Quartet (fifteen people at a table..all ordering coffee drinks)tonight! Now, add phones NEVER stopping tween 7A and midnight. What a great life! Simple? Sane? No Way! Yes, I'd like soome middle ground..and I need community. I'm not wired for nuke families as my primary support system, so I also need to find larger group activity through my skills aquired in funcional and dysfuncional recovery circles...and seek out healthy others who have some common ground. I believe the old timers alluded to all this. That part about not getting sober to go to meetings means keep going to meetings, but find what I couldn't have in terms of community when using. There are alts besides trad churches out there.

Hi there guys, I just read the last three posts from Teressa, Gypsy and Ron. Great to read what you guys had to say.

Where Teressa says someone said to her "It's not for you anymore," I had a friend in AA who used to say that. She had 10 years clean at the time we were hanging out (a few years ago). She said the only reason she came to meetings was, quote, "to show the newcomer this program really works."

Sorry, but I am not that noble. I just celebrated 6 years clean on August 1, and I'm still coming for me! When I help the newcomer, that helps ME. I don't think it would really work if the goal was to get cured then stick around to help others out of nobility. I'm still sick and as soon as I think otherwise, I'll be taking that first drink or snorting that first line.

Teressa, where you said that the program isn't giving you all you need - I think that's very much where I was at when I began this thread. I think that in early recovery I got everything I needed from meetings. It doesn't work that way now, I've gotten better and I know a few things about staying clean. The gift that has given me is the stability and integrity to get involved in other things. Over the summer I took a class called "How to draw Comic Books." Boy, that filled my cup a lot! I realized too, that not everyone I get close to has to be in the program. That might not be OK for a newcomer. But now that I have some time, I'm able to pick people a little better. This particular friend works in the same industry as me and we have helped one another with work issues. There is that balance you are talking about. For me, balance is two meetings a week, doing some service, and partaking in some of the other things that life has to offer - like exercise, reading, art, music, film - that helps fill me spiritually and helps me feel balanced. In the beginning, this would have been a terrible mixture - I needed to stick close to meetings and recovering addicts.

Where Gypsy talked about "the oldtimer embraces the newcomer who appears willing to try as their stories remind us of where we were and how far we have come." Where I would add to this is - I was getting really drained listening to people go on and on, who didn't want any ES&H from me, didn't want any suggestions. I like the idea of helping the newcomer WHO IS WILLING, as gypsy says. In NA we say this is a program of attraction, not promotion. I have people ask me to sponsor them, then they never call, and they see me at a meeting and say, "I was gonna call you." Sometimes I call them once to show them the phone doesn't bite, but the rest is on them. I'm not going to chase them and work their program for them.

I would say that a lot of the anger & frustration I was feeling, and the lonliness I was feeling within NA, has lifted over the months recently. I can attribute some of this to what Ron talked about: "I get to choose who I invite into my life." I figured out that I don't HAVE to sit there and listen to the energy vampires. I can move away - avoid them, as Ron pointed out. That has been kind of hard to figure out, but I look at it like making an amends to myself.

Also, it has helped to post here and read the responses from you all. When I looked at my "core group" of women who I felt comfortable talking with, there were only three besides my sponsor. None of those three ever call me, I have to contact them. But from some of the feedback I saw here, I realize now that three is quite a few! And I also realized I have some non-addict support - like my buddy who works in the same industry as me.

Next, working some more steps helped. Since I started writing here, I worked Steps 10 and 11 with my sponsor. I have worked those steps before, but it's been years, and it was with my first sponsor who was in AA. My sponsor now is NA, and we work from the NA workbook, which is very thorough. Working Step 10 on a daily basis has helped me see what I'm doing for my program more clearly. Working Step 11 has helped me pray and wait and see what God has for me, instead of trying to force what I THINK I need to manifest in my life.

Now, I have to say a couple more things on the whole AA vs. NA stuff! I did both AA and NA for my first two years. Then I moved to San Francisco where AA is quite a scene. It's a see and be-seen scene and it was really out-there for a Midwesterner like me. So I rooted in NA and it's been my home ever since. In '03 I moved back to the Midwest where I have stuck with NA only. I listen to a lot of speaker tapes, you can download them from so many different websites now. What I think and what a lot of speakers say, is that it is most respectful to introduce yourself as an "alcoholic" in AA meetings and an "addict" in NA meetings. We don't need to make our introductions the center of attention - when in Rome, do as the Romans do. That just makes sense to me.

I prefer NA because it's not talking about one substance, it talks about the disease of addiction. Around here (Missouri), NA isn't as full of relapsers and shaky as what it sounds like it might be in Southern Cal. It's not as polished a fellowship or as socially acceptable, either. But it really does address my personal needs more than AA. I'm about the one-disease model - not splitting everything off into different segments and treating it all with different methods. In NA I can apply the program to drug use, over-eating, etc. That's just me. To each his own, of course.