NA Blog – Home Group

The Following article is a reprint from the earliest edition of NA Today we currently have on digital file-April 2005. Enjoy!

Recently I moved to the city from a small country fellowship. I struggled with the impersonal nature of the big city fellowship and I am pretty shy at the best of times. My natural demeanor is retiring and isolated and because I didn’t know anyone, I just didn’t feel like going to meetings.

I went to one a week, then one a fortnight and then I hadn’t been to one for nearly three weeks. I had been meaning to go to the Thursday night meeting and I started thinking I might give it a miss. The thought popped into my head “if I don’t go tonight, it means I’m not going”. The thought rang loud like a warning bell. “My god I’m not going to meetings”. I hopped on the bus and went to the Thursday night meeting where there were a couple of people who recognised me from a few weeks earlier. They said their speaker hadn’t turned up and would I like to do it. I gave it a go and people seemed to enjoy my share. I was very nervous but those members were so welcoming to me that I kept wanting to come back.

They encouraged me to join the group and I did. I went back the next week and since then I have become an regular member of that group. It became my home group. Since then I have been back to my normal behaviour of about 4 meetings per week. I run well on that amount.

I am grateful to those members because they caught me just before I fell. And perhaps the home group is one of those things that is just good to have, to make sure you have at least one meeting a week where you feel welcome and responsible for turning up.

Michael G.