Are you homeless?
Maybe you’ve been to some meetings, but you show up just as the readings start and leave before the hug circle is formed. You haven’t felt comfortable sharing. You have not added your name to the home group list in the binder that is passed around in the meeting … or maybe you haven’t even opened that binder. You are a member of NA when you have the desire to stop using drugs, but until you add your name to a home group list and make a commitment to attend at least one meeting a week, you are homeless. There are many benefits of having a home group. You have the opportunity to do the most basic service in NA by showing up early to your home group, perhaps to help make the coffee, set up chairs, put out the literature and greet other members. As you get more comfortable in your home group, you start to join them for dinner or coffee after the meetings, and this is where the real fellowship starts to grow. You ask someone to be your sponsor. You open the binder and learn about upcoming NA events, and you ask a fellow home group member if you can join them at those events. You get to really know the other addicts in your area, and your circle of support widens and friendships deepen. If you don’t show up to your home group meeting, your friends call and text you to make sure you’re OK. And then the time comes when you really are in trouble, when you are obsessed with the desire to pick up that drug. Using the tools you’ve learned in NA, you choose instead to pick up the phone and call your sponsor. But what if your sponsor isn’t immediately available? You now know that there are other addicts whom you can call. You’ve gotten to know them, had dinner with them, been to cookouts with them … so it’s not so hard to call them when the time comes. The point is that you’re no longer homeless in NA. No one has to do this alone, you have a family who loves you and wants to help you. Please use the comments to share your own experiences with finding a home group, the benefits of having a home, and why you may have had to change home groups over the years.
these are great points. I would add that we learn responsiblity (showing up early or on time consistently) by have a HG commitment. Making coffee kept me clean and I didn’t want to give up that commitment after 18 months but someone else needed it more than me. If you do have a home group this post serves as a reminder that it is our responsibility to help set up (arrive early) and breakdown and clean up after (stay late). We should not freeload on our other HG members. Often one or two people takes care of everything and that isn’t fair and it’s disrespectful.