101 Meeting Starters A Guide to Better Twelve Step

Discussions

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Hazelden Publishing
Center City, Minnesota 55012-0176

800-328-9000
hazelden.org/bookstore

©2007 by Hazelden Foundation

All rights reserved. Published 2007
Printed in the United States of America
No portion of this publication may be reproduced in any manner without the written permission of
the publisher

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

B., Mel.
101 meeting starters : a guide to better twelve step disussions / Mel B.
p. cm.
ISBN: 978-1-59285-369-4 (softcover)
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-59285-931-3
1. Alcoholics—Rehabilitation. 2. Alcoholics Anonymous. 3. Group facilitation. 4. Twelve-step
programs. 5. Discussion. 6. Meetings. I. Title. II. Title: One hundred one meeting starters. III. Title:
One hundred and one meeting starters.
HV5275.B2 2007
616.86’106--dc22
2006046936

11 10 09 08 07
654321

Cover design by David Spohn

Interior design by Ann Sudmeier
Typesetting by Prism Publishing Center
 Contents

Why I Prepared This Guidebook

A Look at Willpower

Am I Different?

Are Alcoholics Perfectionists?

Are We Passing It On?

Are We Victims?

Attracting Trouble

Be Careful What You Pray For

Being Responsible

Changing Things We Can

Coming to Grips with Fear

Contending with Self-Will

Controlling the Imagination

Coping with Depression

Coping with Social Pressure

Dealing with Disagreeable People

Dealing with Rejection

Dealing with the Past

Do Material Things Matter?

Do We Deserve Success?

Does AA Meet Wants or Needs?

Does Alcoholism Have a Physical Origin?

Does “Easy Does It” Do It?

Does Harm Reduction Work?

Emotional Sobriety

Erasing the Old Tapes

Fearing Change

Finding a Higher Power

Finding God’s Will for Us

Finding True Independence

First Things First: Getting Things in Order

Getting Beyond People Pleasing

Giving Away to Keep

Growth through Prayer and Action

Happy Coincidences

How Do You Think of God?

How to Deal with Impatience

How to Keep the Good Tapes

How to Find Happy Sobriety

How Should We Carry the Message?

Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired

It’s Your Vision That Matters

Justified Resentments

Keep It Simple

Let It Begin with Me

Letting Go of Guilt

Letting Go of Problems

Life after Cloud Nine

Live and Let Live

Mental Depression after Sobriety

Needing the Program versus Wanting It

Old Resentments Flaring Up

Principles before Personalities

Resent Someone

Responsibilities in Sobriety

Should We Have the Four Absolutes?

Surrender to Win
Taking the Tenth Step

The ABCs of AA

The Fear of Rejection

The Importance of Continuing

The Need for Self-Honesty

Tricky Comparisons

Trouble in Finding a Higher Power

Truth and Honesty

Walk in Dry Places

Wanting Instant Gratification

We Cannot Live with Anger

We Die to Live

What about My Old Friends?

What Blocks Acceptance?

What Is a Principle?

What Is Being Spiritually Fit?

What Is Insanity?

What Is Living One Day at a Time?

What Is Open-Mindedness?

What Is Prayer and Meditation?

What Is Sincerity?

What Is Willingness?

What’s Needed for Staying Sober

When and Why We Are in the Wrong

When Have We Made a Decision?

When Have We Taken the Fifth Step?

When I Feel Better, I’ll Do It!

When Pride Gets in My Way

When the Worst Things Become the Best

Who Is an Alcoholic?

Whom Can We Fix?

Why and How We Should Practice Forgiveness

Why Attitude Matters

Why Did We Drink?

Why Do I Keep Coming Back?

Why Have a Primary Purpose?

Why Help Is Needed

Why Is One Drink So Bad?

Why Keep Coming Back?

Why Resentment Leads the Pack

Why Should We Make Amends?

Why Suffer to Get Well?

Why Work the Tenth Step?

Willingness Is the Key

Winning the Boredom Battle

MEETING STARTERS
 Why I Prepared This Guidebook

Discussion meetings are closely tied in with AA’s basic purpose of sharing
our experience, strength, and hope with each other so we can stay sober and
help others achieve sobriety. Certain topics and discussions support this
purpose, but others have little or no bearing on sobriety and may even
discourage wary newcomers from ever returning to an AA meeting. My
hope is that this book will help every AA meeting get started on the right
foot, regardless of how skilled the moderator or how distracted the group.
My background for writing this book includes steady attendance at AA
meetings since 1950. With at least ten thousand meetings behind me, I’ve
come to see that not all AA discussion meetings are equal in content or
spirit. Some of them are frightfully boring, although the people attending
can be lively and personable. Many meetings go off track quickly, perhaps
because they were never firmly on track at the beginning. Moderators
sometimes permit discussions to become irrelevant or allow pointless
distractions.
One pitfall is to launch meetings around general subjects such as
“relationships” or “feelings.” These topics are too broad to give us the focus
we need for a helpful meeting. I’ve never come away from such discussions
with the belief that we were really dealing with our personal problems. To
some people, for example, the word relationships has come to mean sexual
affairs, while feelings could embrace the whole gamut of human emotions.
During one great meeting I recall, a young member admitted to the group
that he had been caught shoplifting. We really worked on that topic, and the
ensuing discussion allowed some of us to open up about our own past
dishonesties. No one condemned the young man, but everybody agreed that
shoplifting was wrong and that some amends were necessary. It was a much
better meeting than if we had simply tried to discuss the need for honesty.
We also have good meetings when individual members express specific
issues that are bothering them at the moment. I recall a woman who was
furious because her husband had lost his job, requiring them to move to a
town she detested. Resentments of this kind are grist for the AA discussion
mill, and almost everybody at the table can bring up examples of similar
problems in his or her own past. Discussions can also catch fire when
members talk about problems at work or disagreements with co-workers.
While some of these discussions may wander a bit, they are healthy because
troubled alcoholics need a forum for talking about such matters in a safe
environment.
There are times, of course, when certain members will drone on about
matters that have little or nothing to do with staying sober. AA even attracts
a few people who are badly disturbed or who obsess about certain topics. At
such times, it’s necessary to get back to the topic at hand, but this should be
done with kindness and understanding. I’ve seen capable moderators break
in on such monologues tactfully, changing the subject without hurting
feelings.
But our best course is to start the meeting with a good topic or question
that will trigger immediate responses in the people at the table. That’s why
I’ve written 101 Meeting Starters. The purpose of this guidebook is to get
discussion meetings started in the best way so we will come away fulfilled
and happy that we’ve had another great sharing experience.
Using this guidebook should be simple. The moderator chooses an
appropriate topic, or reads a selection of topics aloud to solicit a preference
from the group. The moderator then reads the text aloud to start the
discussion portion of the meeting. Space has been provided after each topic
for taking notes, which can serve as an aid for future discussions.
These topics are not intended to replace good ideas from group members.
But they can serve a useful purpose in helping members focus on the
problems and concerns that we face in the ongoing quest for continued,
happy sobriety.
 A Look at Willpower

MODERATOR: In AA, we don’t believe that will-power can keep us

sober. Most of us tried that route before we got here, and it didn’t work for
us. No matter how much we “willed” ourselves to get sober and stay that
way, we always wound up drunk. This was a frustrating business, and some
of us decided we were just too weak-willed to find sobriety.
But many alcoholics are very strong-willed, and this can even be part of
the problem. The will is our power to make choices and carry through with
them. In drinking, however, we’ve acquired a compulsion that makes the
wrong choices. The more we fight this compulsion, the more it tightens its
grip on us. (People with other compulsions understand this well, hence the
saying that “you can’t eat just one potato chip.”)
The process that seems to work for us in AA is to choose a different path
with the understanding that our Higher Power is working in and through us,
as well as over and above us. Our own will then becomes only the power to
choose, but it is not the power that does the actual work of keeping us sober.
For this to work, we have to believe in the process and accept it for
ourselves. It is simple, but it works. Now I’d like to ask the group to recall
efforts to stay sober on willpower alone. Most likely, these efforts worked
for a time and then failed. I need a volunteer to start the discussion with an
example from personal experience.
 Am I Different?

MODERATOR: Most of us think we are different, and in some ways we

are. As alcoholics, we had similar problems, but we each had our own
drinking patterns and other unique traits. One of our biggest jobs, then, is to
convince people that they might be alcoholics just like the rest of us.
One delusion that has to be crushed is the belief that we might someday
find the ability to do controlled drinking. Some people say it can be done,
but they aren’t in AA, and they probably don’t have proof that it works.
Some alcoholics are also brighter and more successful than the rest of us.
But we have enough bright, successful people in AA to show that these
advantages are of little help in overcoming alcoholism. Alcoholism appears
to be an equal-opportunity disease that targets people at every level in
society. It’s also a delusion to believe that we don’t have a problem simply
because other people had more trouble with alcohol than we seem to have.
We don’t have to go through everything that some other person endured in
order to admit that we’re powerless over alcohol. Just as with any other
ailment, we can be grateful that we’re dealing with it in the earlier stages.
So we are the same in having the problem, though we are different in
some respects. Who will start the discussion by explaining how “being
different” was a problem that had to be dealt with in getting sober?
 Are Alcoholics Perfectionists?

MODERATOR: Now and then we’ll hear AA speakers say that they used
to be perfectionists. This seems a strange thing to hear from people who,
when drinking, most likely turned in sloppy work as employees or
halfheartedly approached life’s responsibilities. We might think that trying
to be perfect, or doing tasks perfectly, is a good thing. Then why is it a
personal problem?
One answer may be that even though we strive to be perfect, we live in a
reality that is far from perfect. Perfectionists might be hoping for
achievements and conditions that are far beyond anything that is possible
here and now. Part of our problem with life is that nothing measures up to
the pictures we carry in our heads. That’s how perfectionism can cause us
trouble.
In our effort to make perfectionism less of a problem, we need to find
satisfaction in small but frequent improvements rather than in the smashing
successes of our dreams. If we can’t make home runs all the time, we have
to know that games are often won with single-base hits. And most of the
people around us don’t have the luxury of being perfectionists. They have
to be satisfied with progress rather than perfection.
Bill W. said that the good can be the enemy of the best. But there’s also a
saying in engineering that good enough is best. If what we’re doing today is
good enough, it may be as perfect as it needs to be.
In any case, we have to quit living in perfectionistic dreams and start
accepting the reality around us. Who has some thoughts to share on this
topic?