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Meetings

Your first meeting.

You don’t have to speak, and a first name is enough. Here is what happens, and where each fellowship keeps its own list.

First time?

  • You can keep your camera off and your microphone muted.
  • You don’t have to speak. “I’ll pass” is enough.
  • A first name is enough. So is none.
  • It’s free. If there’s a collection, you don’t have to give.
  • Most open with a reading, then people take turns.
  • You can leave whenever you want.

All of that is true of a 12-step room and of SMART Recovery. A 12-step meeting usually goes round the room, one person at a time. A SMART meeting is led by a trained facilitator and runs more like a conversation.

Open or closed

Most listings mark each meeting one or the other.

Open
Anyone can come: someone who wants to stop, someone who came with them, someone who wants to understand.
Closed
Only for the people the fellowship is for. In a fellowship for people who want to stop, that’s people who want to stop. In Al-Anon and Gam-Anon, it’s family and friends. You don’t have to be sure. Wanting to stop is enough.

Bringing someone with you, or not sure which it is? Pick an open one.

How an online room works

  • Join from the fellowship’s own page for that meeting. It gives the link, and often a meeting ID and a passcode.
  • Many also give a phone number, so you can join by calling in, with no app at all.
  • You may wait a minute in a waiting room until the host lets you in.
  • Change the name on your screen to a first name, or an initial.
  • Camera off and microphone muted are normal. To speak, most rooms use the raise-hand button or the chat.
  • Who you see and what you hear stays in the room. Don’t record it or take screenshots.
  • If the link doesn’t work, go back to the fellowship’s page. Times and links change, and theirs is the list that’s kept current.

90 in 90

Ninety meetings in ninety days. It’s a practice from the 12-step fellowships, often suggested to people who are new. SMART Recovery doesn’t use it.

Some people go every day. Some count meetings rather than days, so a missed day doesn’t undo anything. In Limiter it counts meetings, not days: there’s no missed day on it.

Find a meeting

Each fellowship keeps its own list, kept current by the people who run the meetings. Start there.

Each link goes to the fellowship’s own site. The phone numbers are the ones each fellowship publishes, for the US. Not affiliated with any fellowship.

One meeting isn’t the whole fellowship. If the first room wasn’t right, try a different one.

Here for someone else? There are rooms for you too.