u/Electronic-Fish-228

I have a person in the program I’ve been in contact quite a bit, trying to bring him back. He comes to meetings quite often, but he struggles a lot with addiction. I always try to text or call him to check on him. I offer him rides to meetings. I send him quotes and give him advice. Yesterday he asked (because of what I’ve shared in meetings as a cross-addict) if I could buy him a controlled substance. I got extremely upset. I told him to never ask me that again. It was like a slap in the face. Am I overreacting if I were to block him or cut him off completely?

I understand the Importance of sobriety dates.

It’s a way to see how far you’ve come. I feel like in my home group a lot of old timers have 25-30 years under their belt, and that’s awesome. What I don’t like is it being said every time they share. I’ve been in the program for some time, but to hear it continually mentioned how many years of sobriety they have under their belt, how their life is amazing now, how they don’t miss any of the booze or using. It all seems very daunting and almost delusional to share that over and over, specially to newcomers who come to the program on a regular basis. I feel like it gives this false hope of “hey, 30 years because of this program? That sounds awesome” there is some other context thrown in as to how they got that much sobriety, but it never feels like something that is shared in a way others truly benefit from or understand. I respect the old timers a lot, I truly do. They share some great stuff. It’s the whole “this program changed my life and it can change yours too” without any real explanation as to why that irk’s me. Maybe it’s just a small exception of people who are like this, or just rampant in my home group. But I always go up to those people afterwards and try to help them in anyway I can, without making the program itself sound like a quick fix. Anybody else feel this way?