Groups Ask for Feedback
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We have been meeting regularly for two years with mixed results. We began with a core group of two and have had ten different people attend meetings at one time or another. Our longest period of sobriety is two years, and our shortest is five days. Some older group members have recently slipped, and one has stopped coming. We are in a slump and we need your prayers. We seem not to be able to keep people coming back. I experienced the same thing when I attended meetings in Dallas two years and six months ago. Are we doing something wrong or is this typical? We follow the group guidelines pretty well. We meet formally for 1 1/2 hours on Mondays and informally for 1 hour on Fridays to support each other through the weekends.
R.B., Wichita Falls, Texas
We are getting new members all the time, but we have trouble keeping some of the old timers, or people stop coming when their problem is over. Is this a problem with other SA groups?
J.H., Olympia, Washington
Enclosed please find a check for $100.00 which is a group donation from our Wednesday meeting. We’re still holding steady at around 18-26 people per week; and we also just started using an electronic timer to “control” the length of comments. Most of us prefer not to have to use this; however, our group got so large that people speaking at the end of the meeting or latecomers had only a short time to share or no time at all. We have had a lot of recovering people with a lot to share in a limited time. Some of the people who have been coming around for a long time tend to use up a little more time than others when they share (this includes myself. Personally, this has really confronted me with my need to control and my need to “say the right thing”). We are aware of another group here in Chicago that has a meeting with 30+ people where everyone gets to share. We are jealous!…But willing to work out “time problems.” Any suggestions from other groups out there?
J.B., Chicago, Illinois