Alcoholics Anonymous has been doing a great service for the addicts, and it has been a helping hand during the recent pandemic as well. Here are some other reasons why AA meetings during pandemic are more than ever important.
They can save your sanity.
When things are all haywire in your life and you don’t know where to turn, you always have the support and encouragement of your fellow AA group meeting members. Just sitting in the room and listening to others talk about their struggles and strategies to overcome difficult challenges can reassure you that you’re not losing your mind. There really is something to this community of individuals all committed to helping one another maintain their sobriety. No, the participants aren’t counselors, and AA meetings aren’t a form of treatment, but they are invaluable. They’re a support group of your peers, people just like you who are going through the day-to-day issues of working their recovery.
No judgments are offered
In the AA meeting rooms, everyone is equal. Who you really are in your real life is insignificant in AA meetings! It is the fact that you’re committed to your recovery and to helping others maintain theirs. Recovery isn’t a straight-line process, all constantly positive and instantly successful. It takes a lot of hard work, and there are often little detours or setbacks as you try out various strategies to deal with certain issues or problems. As you become more comfortable and are willing to talk about your struggles in the room, you can be assured that whatever you say, you won’t get any judgments back from the other meeting participants.
Find others in recovery who share your particular addiction
Just as you received treatment for your particular addiction at a facility that specializes in such treatment, you also can participate in AA meetings whose focus is recovery from that particular addiction. If you are a recovering alcoholic, your primary AA meeting would be Alcoholics Anonymous. If you have a gambling addiction, you will likely attend Gamblers Anonymous. If you have multiple addictions (alcohol, drugs, compulsive sexual behavior, eating disorder, and so on), you can attend meetings for each of them. The point is that you want to be in fellowships where you can relate to the other members and they to you because you share similar problems and issues in recovery.
Group sharing helps the individual
It is often said that there’s great power in numbers. Nowhere is this truer than in AA group meetings. There’s something about listening to one member’s story, everyone nodding in acknowledgment (they’ve all been there), and offering a comforting word or supportive handshake. Just being able to verbalize the knot of emotions and difficulties involved in things like coping with urges, unexpected visits from former friends who are still using, or other challenges often helps lift your spirits. Someone in the room may even have some practical advice or solution that worked for them and may very well work for you. Brainstorming back and forth in working sessions often results in numerous strategies that may prove useful. This is so much better than sitting around at home stewing over a problem and not knowing what to do about it.