It was the day after discovery when I went to my fist meeting. It was in a building near the center of town about 25 min from my house in the suburbs. I was pretty nervous as I arrived, but managed to still feel good about my attempt to be there. I walked into the building, which had zero labels anywhere for direction. The meeting list just had the directions on it with the address and meeting name. “Saturday Night- Living in the Light.” I entered the East side of the building near the parking lot and met my first obstacle in recovery. Which room are they in? There was probably 15 different doors just on the first floor. No markings, all white doors, white walls. Nothing to go off of for direction. I moved from sight to sound. I heard voices in what seemed like a completely empty building. Walked up to the door took a deep breath, then twisted the knob and walked in. Immediately the room got quiet and all looked at me. One guy with a red beard asked me if he could help me, but before I could answer we were both interrupted. Another guy said, you must be looking for the sex meeting. This is a music group. AKWARD. I walked out of the room with immediate shame and guilt. That experience alone was pretty devastating to my confidence of finding the right room. You know….the one where the sex meeting is.

I continued down the hall and took a left. It was there I heard more noise. I stuck my ear to the door trying to hear what the subject was they were talking about. By this point I was to skittish to open the door, so I walked down to the next door and listened. The noise was just as loud. After several trips back and forth between the doors, I just opened a door. To my surprise there was around 8 men in the room standing and talking. Even bigger surprise was that both doors went to the same room. Now it was up to me to bring my meek and meager voice up to a level where they could hear me and ask if this was the SAA meeting. Turns out it was.

The story of a guy keeping their TV cable box in their car trunk so they didn’t watch inappropriate shows or pornography, another that spent 50 thousand dollars in the past six months on prostitutes, and another just struggling with anonymous sex was enough to know I was in a place where I could be accepted. I wasn’t alone. I was found.

At the end of the meeting the some of the most sage advice ever given to me was from a person I see periodically around town at meetings today many years later. He said, give it time for you to understand why you are here, come to six meetings before you decide if this is for you, and collect peoples phone numbers. You will need them for support. While all of those things were good advice, the six meetings stuck with me and I stuck with the program.

Keep coming back!