*For online recovery help and support visit  Christian Recovery Fellowship Forums.

Suggestions for NewComer's to AA:


1. Locate AA

Call AA in your local home town or click here http://www.christianrecoveryministries.com/MeetingsLinks.html where you can look up meeting times and locations, or find the phone numbers for your local groups, if no meetings are listed.

2. Make Meetings.

Make it to 90 meetings in 90 days before you decide if AA is for you. Alcoholism is a disease that thrives on denial. It is a disease that tells us we don't have a disease.
"I don't need all those meetings"
"One or two a week ought to be enough"
"I don't know anyone there why should I go?"

Meetings are key, they show us thru others, HOW to live sober, and live life on "life's terms". One hour can be borrowed from a days events that would probably not exist for me with our meetings.

I know I spent at least an hour each day on figuring out:

* how to drink
* how not to drink
* how to hide our drinking
* who or what to blame our drinking on
* how to fix our lives from the wreckage of drinking

The suggestion to attend a meeting a day, in an effort to save our lives is not unreasonable. 90 meetings in 90 days, also allows our body chemistry to begin restoring itself providing more clarity to understand the nature of the disease.

"Meeting Makers Make it!"

3. Go early stay late.

Try to show up early to the meeting and leave late. This allows you to talk to the other people attending, and ask questions or simply listen to those who are sharing as the meeting sets up.

4. Get a Big Book!

Ask for a Big Book at your first meeting, read as much of it as you can as soon as you can after you have a copy. Until you have the actual book, You can read it here http://silkworth.net/bb/contents.html and other AA Reading here http://www.christianrecoveryministries.com/ReadingCorner.html .

5. Get a Sponsor!

Find someone in local AA meetings who is living sober and that you relate to, talk to them after the meeting, if you find someone you especially relate to, and think you would like to one day have the life in sobriety they do, ask them to Sponsor you. Even if they only temporarily sponsor you. It is ok to make changes later on, the key here is being willing and in action...do it NOW.

6. Phone numbers.

Ask those in your first meeting for phone numbers. They are a good insurance plan in the event the cravings to drink kick in, gather phone numbers at each meeting you attend if possible. When the cravings set in early in sobriety, it is suggested we pick up the 90lb phone!! It is very hard sometimes to reach out and call those in AA and say "Im having a hard time, and am wanting to drink" we know this, because we too have been where you are!!! It is ok to feel that way, just take action. AA works, when we work it, and the person you call may need the call as much as you do making it!!

7. Keep it simple.

Bottom line for so many of us is that if we are not sober, we are mess, and our lives are a wreck. Living in today, focusing on staying sober, and doing whatever it takes to do so for the NOW.

Remember "This too shall pass".

* Sometimes saying "Ok, I can do this for the next hour", and continuing to do so as so many of us know that "This too shall pass"...in the meantime find another person in AA, get to meeting, use the phone to call your sponsor or other friends in AA, read your Big Book, use your computer to go online and find support.
* Not drinking for a lifetime was never feasible, not drinking for this moment is doable. Do what works.
If you feel you have medical issues in detoxing, it is suggested in AA to seek medical attention, with your doctor, or a hospital if urgent care is needed.

Try an online AA meeting which you can find some listed here http://www.christianrecoveryministries.com/aachats&meetings.html to fill the times between your face to face meetings in your community.

AA has worked for MILLIONS of people all over the world.


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