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I'm having a really hard time going to meetings the past few weeks. I feel very isolated and am not really making friends except for one couple. I'm trying to hang in there and see if this is just a mood that will pass, but it's discouraging that I've felt like this three weeks in a row now. The only thing that seems to have changed is that I took on a service job. I've never volunteered for anything and then quit suddenly a short time later in my life, but I'm seriously considering it now. Maybe I should try another meeting? Any ESH?
hi , i can also say at certain meetings i just didnt feel the "love" . remeber every meeting has a different flavor so keep trying a favorite will be found. but also remeber at some of my uncomfortablest i recover the most stay well, laura
Maybe it's your mood, maybe it's the meeting. Sure, try another. I go to 2 different meetings and also meet with my sponsor for a couple hours a week.. One meeting is my home group and the other is just always a really good meeting. Different meetings have different tones. Perhaps asking yourself what you want out of a meeting would help. For me, it is to pick up any little words of wisdom I can to make my head an OK place to be. After all, no matter what, we live inside our own heads 24/7. If I have to be with anything that often, I better learn to like it. The friendship thing is an added bonus to the program but ultimately the program helps you become your own friend. You said you were "feeling" isolated. Make a choice not to isolate, get out there, seek out what the program has to offer, changed attitudes!. Whatever you try, just keep going back. It works if you work it, and you're worth it!!
Christy
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If we think that miracles are normal, we will expect them. And expecting a miracle is the surest way to get one.
Are there other meetings available in your area? If so it sure wouldnt hurt to check one out. Maybe one that meets on a different night. That way you could see how that one feels, while still maintaining your committal to service to your current meeting. At least until you can figure out if its the meeting or the person going to the meeting. I know for me sometimes a meeting just doesnt click for me either...but I find that if I really start looking at why it didnt click for me..I usually discover it is really my issue and not the meeting or the people there.
If I go into a meeting with alanon in my heart, doesnt really matter how good it is, or if someone there might do or say something I really dont care for... I can still get so much good out of just being there. And like lu said...sometimes I grow the most when I get "uncomfortable" about something that happens in the meeting, again, especially if I later try to analyse why?
Sure, it doesn't hurt to look around for another meeting that fits your personality better, why not? However, I know that I have found that the meeting where I have the most 'fun' is not the one where I learn and grow the most. So, I try to get to both, when I can. You also might just want to give it more time - as I think I have mentioned in another thread, people who I at first didn't really like much in my meetings have come to mean a lot to me, after some time has passed,and I have learned to let go of some of my assumptions. No matter what, you are getting out of the house, talking to people who undertstand yoru situation - that has to be good, right?
You can come to online meetings. They are very good. I believe they are twice a day during the week. That is some support. Then you would have people to check in with and quickly.
IT is so nice that a person has the choice to go to many different meetings. Try out the others is what I have done. Plus, different people keep coming and going and that in itself can change the same meetings tone too. Congratulations on taking on service work! You must have a big heart. cdb xoxoxoxoxo
I have been right where you are many times, and I beleive others have too. I have felt I am not getting this, or I dont need this, or I am too tired to go, or even whats the use its not helping. But I make myself go for me. Each time I go, it may hit me after I am driving home that something clicked in me of what someone had shared. In my group we have decided to read from the alanon books, and each person reads a paragraph then comments on it if they wish. Right now we are reading from How Alanon Works, and even though I have this book sitting right in front of me at home, it is different when it is read aloud by others or myself. Going to meetings for me at first was the only place where I felt sane for that one hour in my life. As time past I was able to keep some of that sanity longer and longer. For me I must go every week even though somedays I dont want to, and that is the days that I really need to go, as I have found out. Checking out other meetings..go for it,,,you do what is right for you!...".Finding inner strength is looking beyond the visible and focussing life's search on the unseen"................................................gardengal
I know for me sometimes a meeting just doesnt click for me either...but I find that if I really start looking at why it didnt click for me..I usually discover it is really my issue and not the meeting or the people there. 