Greetings, women in – or interested in – 12-step recovery!
You’re invited to attend a 12-week, 12-step study group.
4:00 PM – 5:15 PM
Sundays, August 9 through November 1, 2015, excluding October 4
Anne’s place – Directions
You’re welcome to start any time – attend one, many, or all sessions, your choice!
Who attends the study group sessions, and what is said during them, is confidential.
Women in, or interested in, all 12-step fellowships are welcome: Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, Overeaters Anonymous, Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous, Al-Anon, and others. (Wikipedia lists dozens of 12-step groups here.)
The mission of the group is to bring together the wealth of women’s minds and hearts, their knowledge, experience, strength and hope, to give and receive of these riches, and to work the Steps together in a way that invites us to make deep, personal meaning from the Steps for our recoveries and for our lives.
“Ultimately, the underlying theme of the Steps is living a life that is consistent with your deepest values. The Steps are designed to help you discover what those values are – to look at your inner life – so that you can see how you may be acting contrary to your values and learn to honor them in the future – in your outer life. This is what recovery is about: integrating inner with outer and thereby creating integrity.”
– Stephanie Covington, Ph.D., A Woman’s Way through the Twelve Steps
Here’s how we’re working together in our study group on the Steps so far – always open to transformation and evolution!
– Prior to gathering, each participant is asked to study that week’s Step using multiple sources of her choice.
– Chairing rotates.
– The chairperson of the week is asked to create an activity related to that week’s Step and the group’s mission or to facilitate sharing of answers to her choice(s) of questions from a list. The chairperson is responsible for providing or procuring any needed materials for the activity.
– Meeting agenda: Chair opens, offers welcome and confidentiality statement, facilitates self-introductions by first name, reads the introduction, introduces activity/discussion, facilitates sharing, asks for announcements, closes.
– Sharing: The speaker has the floor, is uninterrupted by others in the group, and shares about herself, rather than advising or care-taking. She shares as directly as she can in two-minute intervals so all who care to share may have a turn. A timer is used.
To foster safety, members: 1) use “I-statements” rather than “we-statements” or “you-statements,” 2) observe silence during another member’s sharing, 3) practice a balance of speaking and listening.
– Confidentiality: The group is considered a sacred, private, confidential circle. What’s shared there stays there. We answer the question by non-attendees, “How was the meeting?” with no more and no less than “It was a good meeting.”
– Membership: You may have been invited by Anne or others to attend. If you have others you would like to invite, since the meeting is in Anne’s home, please run it by her first but assume they will be welcome.
– Attendance: Absolutely up to you. Each Step can be studied on its own so you can attend any or all of the sessions. Even if no one else attends, Anne will be in the sun room, studying the Step from 4:00 PM to 5:15 PM.
– Beverages and food: Coffee, tea and filtered water from the tap will be provided. If you would like to bring your own non-alcoholic beverage feel free to do so. Since some attendees have food challenges, this is a food-free meeting. Please eat before or after the meeting. To support each other, please do not bring food to share. If you need a snack, please bring a serving only for yourself.
– Everything else: We can discover and grow as we go!
. . . . .
Anne is finds this book helpful:
A Woman’s Way through the Twelve Steps
With the permission of the chairperson, links to activities each created are shared here:
