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I went on a road trip to another state recently, and one of my favorite things about traveling is finding a local 12-step meeting of some kind. I love doing it. I love seeing how other places do sobriety, because there really are a lot of flavors in this country from state to state.
This one… was not my flavor. The chairperson announced that group conscience for that meeting was to make a special statement about not allowing cross talk at the meeting… then he himself cross-talked over and over again throughout the meeting, which seemed to contribute to other members in the room making some snarky comments and blurting out feedback as other people shared. At one point, the chairperson was reading a passage that mentioned sex, and took the opportunity to fire off a quick Viagra joke.
Yeah, no thanks. I’m a pretty big goofball who sometimes inserts humor into conversations when nobody asked for it, but I try to really observe the principles of the 12-step programs when it comes to behavior at meetings. I want to try to contribute to the safest place possible for people who are either new to the program or just struggling with sobriety in general and need a space to sit for 60 minutes without jokes about impotence.
But the reading also featured two sections that helped me that night. One was a few paragraphs about sober people not being a glum lot—it made me wonder, am I being a little bit too damn serious right now?
And the second part of the reading that stuck with me was the serenity prayer. I spent a few minutes toward the end of the meeting considering approaching the chairperson and saying something about the tone he’d set for the meeting. As we read the serenity prayer, I tried to really have some heart behind it, to really ask God to grant me the ability to know what I can and what I can’t change.
When the meeting ended, a woman approached me and introduced herself. I’d raised my hand and said I was new to the meeting and visiting from Connecticut, and she said she had moved from Massachusetts to this state. I forget exactly how she phrased it, but she mentioned something about the vibe being a little rowdier at that Saturday night meeting.
It was then that I felt like the message from my serenity prayer was obvious in this instance: This is their meeting, with their group conscience, that voted for that guy to be the chairperson. So I didn’t say anything, and went and jumped in my rental car and headed for the hotel.
On the drive, I felt quite a bit better than when I had walked into that meeting, which is what I was looking for. So, mission accomplished! I also tried to unpack how I felt during the meeting, whether maybe I overreacted, and what I wanted to carry with me after that.
And my takeaway was ultimately this. That meeting wasn’t my kind of meeting. I wouldn’t go back.
But it also boosted my spiritual condition for that day. And hey, I’ll take that—we always say take what you need, leave the rest. I happened to leave more than usual in that church rec room, and that’s fine.
As I really played back the meeting in my head, I realized it was a pretty big meeting, with lots of people who raised their hand to indicate this was their home group. That means it’s their meeting, not mine, and that maybe that meeting works really well for the people in that area—just not for me. Guess what? That’s perfectly fine.
Does a part of me still think deep down the recovery world would be better off if I was elected king? Um, yes, probably so. And that means I still have some work to do.
In case you missed it, I put together a fun mini comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes. Check it out HERE! (It’s behind a paywall)
This newsletter is a place of joy and laughter about the deadly serious business of sobriety. So, as I will often do, let me close with a joke:
After spending the evening at a bar, a woman was in no shape to drive, so she left her car in front of the bar and headed home. Stumbling along the street, she was stopped by a police officer.
"What are you doing out here at 3 A.M.?" asked the officer.
"Going to a lecture," slurred the women.
"And who is giving a lecture at this hour?" the cop asked.
"My husband," said the woman.
(Credit: AA Grapevine, January 2006, from Shirlene R. of Greensboro, NC)
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