[QUOTE=plnnr]
Not to hijack the thread, but I often get the feeling the long term members have given up one addictive behavior only to take up another. One member of my Al-Anon group, for instance, has not been married to her alcoholic spouse for more than 20 years - in fact, he’s dead. She continues to attend meetings regularly.
In the scheme of things, being addicted to a regular meeting for whatever reason is no big deal in my book, but I wonder if, at some point, the long termers will ever say, “OK - I’ve done my work, I’ve followed my program, I’m moving on.”
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Many stay in the program for long periods of time because if you think about it they not only get sober, [ or in the case of ALANON get a better understanding] but they also make some very good wholsome friends. I have made some friends that I count as very close to me. I invite them for dinner, we go out, we socialize we have fun together. So many like the fellowship very much! And it is very much a fellowship.
The religiosity of the whole thing doesn’t bother those of us who take the meetings as a time for a daily reprieve with other drunks who understand what we are going through. “Normal” Drinkers sometimes don’t understand that.