This post is written for anyone who want to stop doing an addictive behavior. New or coming back. It could be drugs, or alcohol, or shopping/racking up debt. This is how to get started in a world of freedom and self-improvement: recovery.
12-Step meetings like Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous are popular and many people find them helpful. But not everyone likes them. There are other options as well.
The first thing you need to know about recovery- it’s all about building a group of support, and having a realistic defense against your addiction when sheer willpower fails.
Components of a workable recovery plan are:
- Committing to both abstinence and harm reduction (staying away from the drug, and being as safe as possible if you relapse.)
- Attending some kind of support group on a regular basis. This can be done from home/online. For most people, they go to a meeting a couple times a week. We cover 3 common types of support group meetings in this post.
- Finding a sense of purpose through the meetings you attend- by enjoying fellowship (mingling), sponsorship (mentoring), and volunteer work, aka jobs and commitments.
- Building your coping skills for times of distress. Coping skills are things you immediately can use to calm down or resist an urge.
- Creating a clear relapse prevention plan for yourself, writing it down, and posting it somewhere you can easily view it
- Creating an emergency kit to use when you get a craving.
Our blog will be working through each of these topics in a series. To subscribe to our blog, enter your email here:
Today we’ll be talking about finding online meetings.
Sometimes you don’t want to leave the house and sit in a room full of strangers. It’s awkward and time consuming. Other times there aren’t a lot of options because you live somewhere rural. If you’re trying to end an addiction, you can attend online/virtual meetings, to customize your recovery to your schedule and preferences.
AA Meetings – This directory of online AA meetings is a great resource. Online AA meetings are offered every day, at any time of day. Even in the middle of the night. The AA process is oriented on 12 clearly defined steps to recovery, focused on practices such as:
- acceptance of the condition of addiction. Admitting you have lost your power over the behavior and willpower is no longer enough.
- Taking responsibility of your flaws, fears, and resentments
- Being helpful and supportive to others.
- These 12 step meetings are the most popular recovery intervention there is. You can be an addict of any kind and benefit from these meetings (you do not have to be an alcoholic in particular.) There is an official book that goes along with these meetings that’s worth reading. It is often referred to as the “Big Book” and it can be very healing to read, in my experience.
- There are online meetings specifically for LGBTQ, Artists, women, men, young people, neurodivergent people, etc.
- There are different types of meeting formats- reading the Big Book steps, speaker/discussion with different topics etc. There are even music themed groups. You can choose based on the descriptions on the intergroup website here.
Refuge Recovery Meetings – Refuge Recovery meetings are based on Buddhist principles and truth-telling. The goal is to create balance and alignment in the life to heal from the suffering that causes addiction. Offered every day, in the mornings and evenings, these meetings usually open with a meditation, and then people share their progress on their recovery journey. Here is the accompanying book. The book guides you to fully realize and process the ways addiction has caused you and others suffering, and provides a path to break those habits and start fresh.
Smart Recovery Meetings – Smart Recovery meetings draw on established practices from cognitive behavioral therapy, also called CBT. These meetings focus on adjusting our perspective to get different results for our behavior. There are free printables on the official website to get a sense for the kind of self-work you’d be doing in these meetings.
These are just some of the options. There’s also Recovery Dharma, for example, with its own book and meetings.
Whether or not meetings are your style, we highly recommend integrating journaling, yoga, and meditation into your daily life to support your recovery process.
Comment below if you have any meeting recommendations!
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