I threw out this idea some time back and got some positive response, but I never got around to doing anything about it until now. I know we have a fair number of clean and sober folks around here, and thought it might be nice to have a sort of email AA/12-step meeting for Dopers.
My idea is to do this like other email groups I’ve joined in the past. Each week will be one meeting; one person will volunteer to be the leader each week and will choose and share on a topic. The members of the group are free to share on that topic or not as they choose. Off-topic sharing is fine, with the request that “Off-topic” or something like that be in the subject line. Changes to this format can be made by group decision. The group would need to have a secretary to keep track of who is leading each week so as to avoid confusion or duplication.
I’m thinking something like listserv would be best, so emails only have to get sent to one address, but I don’t know how to set that up. If anyone has any experience with setting up mailing lists, I’d welcome the help.
So who’s interested? If you don’t want to post here in the thread, send me an email or just sign up for the group whenever it gets going.
I’ve set up a community on LiveJournal: Cecilians Anonymous. It’s a closed community, so to join, you will need to be added by me. This gives us some privacy, by making the journal accessible only to members.
To join, I ask that you be a member of AA, NA, Al-Anon, another 12-step or other recovery program, or a friend or family member of a person in recovery. This will be a place to share about recovery and issues relating to recovery. It’s not really for people who are simply curious about recovery; there are many other places to get that kind of information.
If you want to join and don’t already have a LiveJournal, I have some codes that can be used for this. All you would need to do is contact me, and I will email you a code so you can create an LJ account. Once you have the account set up, let me know what your username is and I can add you to the community.
I’d like to clarify the purpose and membership of this community a bit more, since based on emails I got from someone, it seems that some may feel that it is exclusionary.
I wanted to make it like a closed meeting; frankly, I feel more comfortable with having it that way, and I figured some other folks might feel the same. I’m obviously OK with sharing that I am sober with the boards, but there are some times when I would prefer to share what is going on with others who I know understand where I am coming from. Sometimes, people who are not in recovery may give well-meaning but wrong advice and feedback simply because they haven’t been through the wringer.
As far as requesting that it be people who are in a recovery program rather than simply dry, I have found that sometimes people who have chosen not to go to AA or another program are hostile to those principles and that would simply be disruptive. Not that everybody who chooses not to go to meetings is, but I’ve seen it happen often enough on the boards that I’m a bit leery. I’d like for this community to be a supportive rather than combative place.
I’m not trying to exclude people; in fact, I tried to make the guidelines as inclusive as possible. However, I think there is some merit in suggesting that people have already decided they need to be in a support group before they join this particular support group. I hope that makes sense. If anyone has any questions, please feel free to ask them, either here or via email.
Hey, geobabe - I didn’t mean to suggest you were being exclusionary, or even if you were that that was a bad thing. Just asked if I could play with you.
I feel no hostility towards anyone who is participating in AA or it’s ilk. I personally decided I’d try to go it alone. Doesn’t mean that is the best choice for anyone else.
I’ll also suggest that in your chosen format you would have the ability to cut off anyone who proves themselves hostile or unsupportive.
But I’m a little curious - why do people who are in a support group, need an additional support group?
i sincerely wish you the best of luck with this support group, your sobriety, and everything else in your life.
Dinsdale, I hear you. I applaud you for taking the steps you feel are appropriate to deal with your problems. It’s healthy and the perfect choice for you. Anyone who bags on you for it, or for not doing it “the right way” (meaning THEIR way) is a jerk.
In my oh-so-humble opinion, it’s not that I need another support group! Of course, maybe I do… But I can see Geobabe’s point- the content of closed meetings can be very different from open meetings, and the comfort level can be different as well. I have no problem with this being strictly a 12-step thing, though I would participate even if it wasn’t!
ANYWAY, I hope that some of the other 12-steppin’ Dopers come on in!
Ooh, a question- how about those “undecided’s” who don’t know whether they are going to work a program or just wing it?
It’s not that I think I need another support group, but I was interested in forming a sort of “special interest” group, of the overlapping groups of Dopers and people in recovery. If you’ve never participated in AA or another recovery program it might not make sense, but we in the program have a common language and way of sharing with one another that is not necessarily that same way people in the “outside world” do. I wanted to combine that with Dopers, who also have a shared experience, and see what would happen.
