Insider Insights: Getting Started in Online Recovery
Learn how to get started on In The Rooms from longtime member and meeting chairperson Marc Dunn.
It can be difficult to find reliable resources for recovery support, but with over 860,000 members, and an accumulated recovery time of over 2,774,473 years, In The Rooms can offer reliable and secure recovery support with a network of people spanning the globe. I have made many great friends and have become very involved in the live video meetings, even creating a men’s only group for those struggling with all kinds of addiction. It is a real community where real friendships and bonds can be cultivated and is ideal for anyone who wishes to enhance their recovery experience.
So how do you get started?
- Create a profile. Include as much detail as you are willing to share—let people get to know you.
- Tell us where you’re at in your recovery journey. You can identify yourself as someone in recovery, an ally or supporter, or an individual seeking immediate help.
- Select which fellowships you’d like to be a part of. Identify the type of program you take part in so that you can get connected with like-minded people.
- Make friends. One of our biggest demons is isolation, and friends will help you meet other friends and learn about other people. You may find that you have more in common with others than you realize—even those in faraway places, be it Japan, Australia or Alaska.
- Post in the status feed. Let us know what you’re doing, how you stay in recovery or what’s troubling you. The community is compassionate, and others are probably going through the same thing.
- Learn to listen without giving advice. Most of us just want to be heard.
- Attend online meetings often, without eliminating your face-to-face (F2F) meetings or local support group and sponsor. We need human contact, but we might not be able to get out for many reasons. This is a great place to supplement and substitute when necessary. You can do anything online that you can do at face-to-face meetings, except touch and share coffee.
- Confirm your meeting attendance. If you need proof of your attendance, there is a link for that at every meeting also.
There are step by step tutorials available here to show you exactly how to get started before you even sign up with In The Rooms.
It is important to be aware that this is a public website and is accessible to all. Practice the same smart safeguards you would practice anywhere on the internet.
Worried about privacy and data protection? In The Rooms takes measures to ensure that your personal information is never shared in the public sphere—information that you list or share on In The Rooms will not be visible in Internet searches or the like.
Just like a clubhouse or church basement, the site hosts meetings for every 12 Step, Non 12 Step and other program imaginable, including AA, NA, CA, SMAA, Wellbriety, OA, Life Recovery and even some groups that are exclusive to In The Rooms, such as Spiritual Gangsters and Soul Sisters.
In The Rooms is LOVE. Love was at the heart and soul of its inception when Ken Pomerance and Ron Tannebaum first came up with the idea 13 years ago, and that concept continues today. Addiction, in all its forms, is a scary concept for most people. It is largely misunderstood, and finding people with empathy and understanding to talk to about it can be a difficult task. It was that need for friendship and understanding that brought me to In The Rooms and it is the fellowship that has kept me coming back. Online fellowship was not a common thing ten years ago. Thankfully though, people like Ron and Ken, who have decades of recovery behind them, saw the need to keep the recovery movement relative and used the online platform to create something quite special.
I look forward to meeting you, should you decide to sign up and become part of our global community. You will find warmth, inclusion, solidarity and of course fun along with deep understanding and knowledge of how to become and remain recovered from your addiction.
Everybody is welcome at In The Rooms.
