Over the last several months I’ve been fortunate (or unfortunate – depending on how you want to look at it) enough to have heard from several different people how lonely, depressed or just out of sorts they seem to be.

My advice to each of them has been the same: Maybe you should go to more meetings.

It’s easy to give the same advice to these people when I met each of them in a 12 step meeting.

Now it came as a surprise to me when each of these individuals gave me exactly the same answer: I don’t go to meetings anymore. I just don’t feel connected there and don’t think I really need to go anymore.

Well, I can understand why you feel lonely, depressed and out of sorts. You’ve obviously become well enough that you no longer need other people, a program of recovery or a power greater than yourself.

I’m not going to feel sorry for you, I’m not going to enable you, I’m not going to listen to you whine. Get the hell out of your self-imposed seclusion and go to a meeting, you’ll feel better, see people and rejoin the path of recovery that will show you a way of life that is indescribably wonderful.

“Yeah but…” A friend of mine says that everything after “yeah, but…” is bullshit. I’m all for that, there are no excuses, take the action you need to take to recover for your disease and quit complaining that the world doesn’t treat you right. It’s not attractive.

If you go to meetings and don’t participate in the fellowship before or after the meetings, that’s half your problem. Whey aren’t you reaching out to other members and calling, emailing or hanging with them?

“Yeah, but emails aren’t the same…” see above
“Yeah, but no one really connects with me…” see above
“Yeah, but my case is different…” see above

You want to feel a part of, you want to feel like you belong? Take the action. Hold out your hand to shake, raise your hand to share, invite yourself to lunch… Do something.