Won’t Meetings Be Depressing?

One of the first surprises people experience when they join a group like Alcoholics Anonymous is how much laughter there is in the room.  There is a lot of joy in recovery.

“But why?”

Face it. Alcohol might have been “fun” at some point early in your drinking.  Then the embarrassing, half-forgotten nights and the next day’s apologies come…and the next time it’s a little worse, and your friends and family are a little angrier.

Meetings are about the joy of living again. Sure, you will hear some sad stories, but you will also hear stories that will make you laugh – stories you relate to.  For some people it takes a few days or weeks for the initial haze to wear off before they start hearing the story that makes them smile, “Heck, I did that. How crazy was that?!”

Really you shouldn’t be that surprised by the laughter: you are in a room full of people who once led lives of quiet desperation, filled with secrets, lies, and angry friends and family. Now they are growing, changing, and building lives of integrity and balance. Laughter is only natural.