As I anticipated attending the 2007 Convention, I felt both excitement and fear. Excitement because the idea of meeting lots of new friends in recovery (including people I do service work with) sounded like great fun! But fear at the prospect of traveling to Maryland to meet these people, especially the men. My former career involved traveling all over the country to work with other people—mostly men—on various company projects. My work travels were the scene of a large part of my acting out. So the prospect of arriving at a city away from home and running into people I work with was scary. I had no idea what to expect.

For the first few years of my recovery, I practiced sobriety by avoiding men. I had quit my job shortly before our family went into recovery, and I believed that the scenario of me being around a bunch of guys had been my problem. My new motto was: “I don’t need to be around any men other than my husband.” The problem was that, while this attitude helped me achieve sobriety, it did not produce great recovery. After several years of avoiding men, I found myself increasingly triggered by any guy I happened to run into. I couldn’t understand why this could be. If I was sober, why wasn’t I getting better? The answer is that I had no real recovery. For one thing, this attitude kept me from attending the great mixed meetings in our city.

Today I know that the large mixed meeting I attend has been one of the most healing things in my recovery. Men and women meeting and working together provide an opportunity to learn how to have healthy relationships with the opposite sex. I feel loved and accepted by the guys in my group, and I feel safe with them, basically because they desire sobriety. The environment among sober people is different from that among non-sober people. People who aren’t sober lust after others in order to make themselves feel better. I know this because I am an addict. But sober people are able to love others, seek others’ best interests, and help others maintain sobriety. I know this because of the way I feel when around the sober people in my group.

It turns out that I found this exact same atmosphere at the convention: sober people reaching out in love to help others in recovery. No scary vibes. It was just like one big meeting; I felt entirely safe. I had so much fun with my new and old friends that I didn’t want to leave! The convention experience was just one more example of the miracle of this program of recovery.