Don’t Skip the Porch Meetings!

“If the world had a front porch like we did back then…”—Tracy Lawrence

Anyone who has been around Alcoholics Anonymous meetings knows that an AA meeting is really three meetings rolled into one. There is the meeting before the meeting, the meeting itself, and the meeting after the meeting. Two of the three usually take place on the porch or standing outside the smoking area. If you have been to AA meetings but did not take advantage of the porch meetings, you are truly missing out on an important part of recovery.

In my early days in Alcoholics Anonymous, I had nothing but time. In the small town in which I live there are often two meetings per day, and that helped me focus on recovery instead of why I couldn’t drink. Still, there was plenty of time to get stuck in my own head. Thankfully, several old-timers would show up an hour early before meetings, set up the room and get the coffee made. Then, basically, hang out waiting on people to arrive. I quickly learned I could extend the time away from the storm in my brain and find a shelter filled with people in recovery just by showing up early.

Porch meetings, as we call them, were the meetings where I picked up the tried-and-true tips and tricks to stay sober. At least three days a week, I would have a steaming coffee cup sitting beside a butt-numbing metal chair and listen intently to conversations that seemed to be about everything except recovery.

Often the discussion included fishing or the notoriously-fickle South Georgia weather that makes 20-degree swings in temperature turn a nice spring day into a sauna. Other times, there was a discussion of the best college football team. No one ever agreed, but no one got angry. It was for the most part a typical porch conversation in South Georgia. Yet, somewhere in the discussion, tidbits of sobriety would break through the neutral zone that buzzed around my head.

On that small porch, I learned that keeping some form of candy on me at all times would change my mood and stop cravings when they appeared.

“Alcohol is just sugar,” an old timer said. “Your body is missing that sugar and it will send you looking for booze if you don’t give it a little.”

Another fellow offered up his concoction of Gatorade and Skittles to help remove the shakes that accompany alcohol withdrawals. “It works,” he said. “We used to use that in a rehab I worked in back in the 80s.”

I never had to try the Gatorade-Skittles combo, and I think I may have forgotten an ingredient or two since that conversation. But, I did keep dark chocolate on hand throughout my first year of sobriety. I can say for a fact that it helped improve my mood, trimmed my cravings, and increased my waistline.

Unlike traditional AA meetings where no one gives advice and individuals only share his or her experience, strength and hope about a given topic, porch meetings are full of advice with the full recognition that no one has to follow it.

I quickly learned that recovering alcoholics don’t follow the exact same regimen. Instead, they take what works for them and use it until they need to add another tool. When asked, the three main members of the porch committee would have different solutions to any problem other than the agreement that working the 12-steps is the best way to stay sober. Even then, they each had a slightly different variation to working each step.

The porch was a good place to ask about places to look for work, the likely outcome of a pending legal issue (several of them had prior knowledge), and almost any household problem that could be imagined. It was even the place to pick up new cooking recipes. When my head was full of confusion during early sobriety, getting simple advice from the committee made living life easier.

I tried to spend most of my time listening. However, as I ran into problems in early recovery, I came to rely on those porch meetings as a chance to vent my frustrations. After a long, “fun-filled” day, I would literally speed to the porch, grab some coffee, light a cigarette and interrupt whatever conversation, by saying, “Listen to this shit…”

No matter what crazed mental gymnastics had me twisted, the gathered group would listen patiently, and perhaps, gleefully, to my latest rant that was so important, but really nothing. Sometimes that was all I needed, and they knew it. After my rant was finished, there was always one person who would say, “But, ain’t it great to be sober.” Or “At least you can handle it because you are sober.” Somehow all of the anger or frustration would begin to melt away. I couldn’t argue against those truths.

With some problems, I faced down three choices: accept it, change it, or drink over it. “You are going to do one of the three so you might as well pick one and get to it,” said an old timer as he broke off the filter on his cigarette before smoking it.

“I can’t drink over it,” I offered looking for some direction.

“Then flip a coin,” he shrugged. “There are only two choices left.”

Honestly, I don’t remember most of the “Earth-shaking” problems of early sobriety. My emotions were a roller coaster and I am sure most of the “problems” were of my own creation. Or, they may have been the ever-growing, anticipation of what may come.

There is so much wisdom to be shared at porch meetings. On the porch, is where I learned why I needed to let go of resentments. A porch alumni once noted, “some of us learn to let go when we get tired of the pain of being dragged around. You have a logging chain wrapped around one arm and you’re being dragged through through a waist-deep pit of gravel, but you still think holding on will make a difference. I guess when you get ripped to ribbons you will realize it is not worth it. Besides, no one else even knows you’re in the gravel.”

I learned ways to accept things I couldn’t change. A new attendee who was getting sober to have a chance to see his kids again was frustrated by his slow progress. There was literally nothing he could do he said over and over to anyone who would listen. One of the porch committee stopped him in mid-whine.

“What you should be doing is praying for your children,” the man began, taking time to spit tobacco juice into a bottle. “I was told that each night I should pray for my daughters and as I prayed, imagine that the prayers were dropping around them like flowers to protect them. Now, I didn’t see my daughters for 8 years. But, I did that every night. That’s the one thing I could do for them. The truth is that they didn’t need the father I was, they needed the one I could become and that takes time.”

I was never sure what the attendee heard, but I could see the selfishness in his frustration and a simple solution to put others before himself. As another frequent member of the porch committee told me when I was explaining a problem I had at work, “You gotta pray for them sons a bitches. That’ll fix them.”

Of course, prayers could be answered in unexpected ways one porch-committee, old-timer warned. “If you pray for patience, you are going to get it. So don’t get mad if your car breaks down, or if your credit card stops working. It’s an opportunity to learn patience, and you asked for it.”

The same guy joked that he saw a guy riding a bicycle down the side of the road and thought, “Lord I wish I could still do that.” Then, followed with I didn’t mean it, god, I’m grateful for my car.”

Later, when I was finished with one of my rants about having to wait 40 days for a paycheck when I returned to teaching, the same fellow said that I was a typical alcoholic and wanted to have everything happen immediately.

“Here is what you need to do,” he said through a puff of smoke. “Go down to Wal-Mart and pick up a pack of Tic-Tacs. Then find the longest line, get in it, and wait until it’s your turn to pay for it, then come back and tell me what you learned.”

“So I can learn patience?”

“Yes, and the importance of fresh breath when you are talking your head off.”

That last part was a joke, I think.

The porch was the only place a fellow alcoholic told me that I couldn’t drink. His perfectly-timed, “hell, no!” put an end to the musings about a planned relapse.

Sometimes the conversations included war stories from our drinking days. Particularly funny stories of Christmases ruined, DUIs narrowly avoided as well as those that weren’t, and unlearned lessons that led to two trips through a hurricane to find the dope man’s house evacuated always ended in laughter. But, instead of a wistful reminiscence, there would be a gruff voice reminding us to be grateful we don’t have to live like that anymore.

Always, with five minutes or so left before the start of the meeting, one guy would look at his watch and say, “Well, It’s about that time. I’m going to get another cup of coffee.” Just like that. The conversation stopped, cigarettes were snuffed out and the crowd of people who had filtered on to the porch over the last hour would file in to share their experience strength and hope during the meeting.

Afterwards, the porch was the place to be again. In a haze of cigarette smoke, newcomers would ask questions about the meeting topic. Sponsors and their sponsees would sometimes step off to the side to discuss working steps. But, most often, the meeting topic became an extended discussion on the porch. Different stories were shared, and people who rarely talked in the room had their chance to share a perspective. During my first few years sober, the porch discussions after meetings would last another hour or so before the crowd dwindled and members headed home for the evening.

During those discussions, I picked up tips on how to survive drinking occasions that I had to attend, reminders that I was exactly where I was supposed to be even when I felt like running away from everything, and the sense that I finally, truly belonged somewhere.

I met two of the three wise men of my sobriety on that tiny porch in front of my homegroup. It was the place where I first saw Nina, my wonderful, amazing wife. That porch and the people who I met there kept me sober for that long, winding first year of recovery.

Sadly, that particular porch no longer exists in my recovery. Life always brings change whether we are ready or not. (Another reminder from the porch committee). Our home group had to move to a new location two years ago.

Having forgot what I learned on the porch about resentments, I helped pack up the old place, but refused to visit the new one. Holding on to the logging chain and standing neck deep in gravel, I fought the change for about a week. For me, the move included a grieving process for the loss of a friend. Secretly, I hoped that it was a practical joke or a terrible mistake that would be resolved quickly.

Finally, I let go of the logging chain and showed up ready to hate the new location. But, I really couldn’t complain. Right smack in the middle of the building was, you guessed it, a porch.

We still have regularly scheduled porch meetings at our new location. The committee has changed, but the message of sobriety stays the same. Now, I am one of the committee members who listens carefully, and at times gleefully, to a molehill problem that a newcomer has turned into Mount Everest. And, keeping the tradition, I share what worked for me to solve a similar problem.

I never know if what I share is taken away or left behind to enjoy the shade of the porch. However, I do know that porch meetings will remain a large part of my recovery because I stick with what works. I learned that last part on a porch and I don’t intend to forget it.