Looking at different recovery care programs and choices

OK lets try this again...  

Over the next few weeks I am going to provide infromtion on diffrent recovery care programs .There is not one that is a fit all for everyone .The idea is to see what it out there and choose what will work for you .

I am starting with aa/na  


DO I FIND AN AA OR NA 1. Use the telephone directory. Both Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous list local numbers in the white pages of the local telephone directory. When you call AA or NA, you will either be answered by a 12 Step volunteer who will talk with you and give you the information you need, or hear a recording that gives day, times and locations of area meetings plus the first name and t
telephone numbers of members you may call for more information.
What are the meetings like?
. When it's done right, you will come to care about the members of your group, and they about you. Relationships are an important part of wellness and life satisfaction. Through this fellowship, you will experience acceptance. You will be valued, not blamed. When you begin to try rationalizing a way to use again, someone will recognize what you're doing and care enough about you to warn you and try to stop you. You will learn a great deal about recovery from both the advice and the mistakes of the members of your home group.
. By hearing the stories at the meetings and looking at the lives of other members who are recovering, you will come to recognize and believe that recovery is genuinely possible. You will gain hope and energy that will assist your recovery.
. The meeting lasts for about an hour. . Each member of the group introduces himself or herself (example: "I'm John and I'm an an alcoholic"). A speaker shares his/her recovery story if it is a speaker meeting, or if it is a discussion meeting, there will be a discussion. The meeting closes with the Serenity Prayer. Afterwards there is a fellowship time with tea, coffee and conversation, plus an opportunity to look at, maybe purchase, available literature. There is no charge to attend AA or NA meetings --a basket will be passed, and most people will put in a dollar, but it's fine to not put in anything if you don't have it to spare.
A sponsor is a member of the AA or NA group, someone who has good recovery and is a teacher, advisor and guide for another member who is trying to recover. As in most life situations, you get out of AA/NA what you put into it. Ideally a member should become willing to do "whatever it takes" to gain recovery and tries to "work the program" instead of just being a detached observer at meetings. Having a sponsor is an essential part of "working your program". Your sponsor should be the same gender as you --men sponsor men and women sponsor women. Get yourself a sponsor soon. You find a sponsor by listening to the speakers and finding someone whose recovery you admire and want your recovery to be like his/hers. Ask that person to be your sponsor. Do not be discouraged if s/he cannot. In that case, or if it's taking you a while to locate a sponsor, ask at the end of a meeting for someone to be your temporary sponsor.

[avisg]

jenno, thank you for adding info .I have not been to aa so I wrote this up from info I could find . I apogees if I got anything wrong

[122 Tactical Fighter Group]

I think its tremendous idea to cover the aftercare options to look at. Not that much done on the forum about that even though we say that getting clean is the easy part and staying clean is the hard part. Didnt understand what they meant then. I figured a week or two of "flu like" symptoms and this one would be in the rear  view mirror. Wrong. You need some type of aftercare......anything from a friendly ear to the MedHelp forums to NA/AA or another step plan. But just do something.....its about more than not taking pills any longer.....

[avisg]

eagle you are so right I wish all it was ,was not taking the pills but it just does not work that way

[CATUF]

when i got back from my first rehab i had an addiction professional tell me "if you're not part of an ongoing program you WILL relapse."  I thought she was crazy - i had 30 days and there was NO WAY i was ever going to do that again.  i didn't need any program.  i had learned my lesson, i saw where i had gone wrong and i was DONE.

i was right, too.  i didn't do "that" again. when i quickly relapsed i immediately got MUCH worse than ever before.

when i got back from my second rehab i allowed that a program might not be such a burden after all.  the main part of my program has been AA.  i have found it to be VERY open to drug addicts like me.  i know of a few groups that really frown on addicts identifying themselves as such or talk of any drug other than alcohol, but it's a very few.  

for a long time i simply avoided those groups, because it seemed important to be able to identify myself as "an alcoholic and a drug addict."  it doesn't seem so important now.  most meeting, and recovery in general, seem to be about how to live, and not so much about what we drank or used.

CATUF
1321

[worried878]

I ended up in an AA group just because i felt more comfortbale there//a ladies group and many alcoholics also have addiction problems and vice versa....i do not have a sponsor..nor do i want one...that is someone u can call day or night if u feel weak...great idea but many do not want the responsibility of being a sponsor and i can see their point..it is like being on cal 24/7...others enjoy being a sponsor....it is a group much like this one/bonding takes place but faces are invoved..there is socialization outside of the meetings/healthy outings..they have parties for new years and all of that stuff..dances for valentines etc...it is a social network...there is also those who carry it a step further from the group and go to rehabs to help newly clean people...it is a very "uplifting" experience at the end of the meeting when we all hold hands in a circle and do the AA/NA chant....u feel empowered when u leave a meeting...usually starts out with a reading..a short thought of some sort and we all add to it...everyone is there to support anyone who had any trigger flare ups etc

[kjbriggsy]

maybe they just meant the serenity prayer... *shrug*.... i think you guys said it all. the one thing i am going to add is that(and this is only in my experience, it may hve been different for you all). i would say that i made it harder to work the program b/c of my insecurities. i first started going with a friend of mine. we had used together for years. i had always wanted to go to a meeting but was too nervous to go alone so since we were both trying to get clean i asked her to go with me. for me brining someone who i was so so close with really back fired on me. i thought so much about what she was thinking and how sh felt about the meeting that i couldnt concentrate on what was going on around me. we tried like 10 more different meetings in the area before i gave up and two weeks later i relapsed. after my second time around of giving sobriety a shot i got up the courage to go to a meeting alone. best choice i ever made. the first na meeting i went to is now where my home group is. i had to switch when i moved to fla. but after moving back to philly i came right back to my 'home'. i do have a new sponser now though because my original sponser was dealing with her own personal problems. but that hapens sometimes. i will say that was my roughest time through my experience with na because the person that had literally been the biggest influence through recovery had a rough relapse...sorry getting off track. but moral of my story in my opinion, since this is YOUR recovery, you shoul be in charge of it. having a partner in crime may interfere with that. so taking control may mean being brave you being the driving force in your recovery. great post.

-Kerstin

[CATUF]

"keep coming back, it works if you work it" seems rather chant-like to me

[worried878]

yep..that is what i was referring to just did not go into detail..we say the chant in a circle holding hands at ther end of every meeting..thanks u catuf...holy cow!