May 26: Coping With Wanting to Isolate

Coping With Wanting to Isolate

This meeting is a miracle! I am typing as my daughter sleeps next to me. She is 10 months old now and has been very ill all week. I was only able to get to one F2F meeting this week. But I can get to GROW no matter what is happening, and the fact that it’s my week to kick off the meeting feels like my HP watching out for me.

I signed up to lead the meeting because I am still relatively new to GROW, and wanted to make myself “a part of.” Before I started AA, I so wanted to feel a part of, but I didn’t. Most of my life, I felt different and alone. I truly believe that I was born with the “ism” of alcoholism long before I picked up a drink, and that that “ism” told me I wasn’t good enough and that I should isolate – the same mindset that tries to get me to isolate and drink today! And then I went to my first meeting, and I felt so loved and so comfortable.

The point is, the fact that I feel welcome in AA meetings – that I feel I belong and that I keep coming back – is nothing short of a miracle. We are people from all walks of life but who share a past and a hope for, a commitment to, a different future. I see this whenever a newcomer turns up – we are all thrilled for him or her, though we are strangers. Where else do we see that?

Of course, it is important to work on our part in this – continuing to attend meetings and helping newcomers feel welcome the way we felt welcome, and continuing to resist that isolating tendency in ourselves.

So my question for you all is – when you feel the need to isolate today, how do you cope with it? And (which is perhaps a related topic) how do you help newcomers today? Or, if you are relatively new, what keeps you coming back?

I ask this because I find that I still have that tendency to isolate in me, and I have to fight it – especially in the wake of postnatal depression. I look forward to hearing your experience, strength, and hope. Thank you so much for letting me share.