Recovery meetings and peer support in Doncaster

Peer support means people who've been through it sat in a room with people going through it. No professionals, no assessment, no waiting list. Nearly all of it is free and nobody has to refer you.

Doncaster has 12-step meetings (Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, Cocaine Anonymous), SMART Recovery groups, and sober social groups where the point is just being somewhere that isn't the pub. They're all independent organisations. Phoenix doesn't run any of them and isn't connected to them, we just keep the list.

What actually happens at your first AA or NA meeting

Nobody writes this down honestly, so here it is. Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous run to much the same shape, and so does Cocaine Anonymous.

You turn up. It's usually a church hall, a portacabin or a room above something, and it smells of instant coffee. Somebody will clock that you're new and say hello. You can tell them you'd rather just listen. That happens every single week and nobody minds.

You sit down. Somebody reads a bit out at the start, which sounds churchy and a bit formal the first time you hear it. Then people take turns talking about their week. Nobody interrupts and nobody gives advice. Some of it will be boring. Some of it will be the most familiar thing you have ever heard come out of a stranger's mouth.

There's a collection, usually a quid or two, and you don't have to put anything in.

You give your first name if you want to. Nobody signs you in, nobody takes your details, nobody rings you afterwards unless you ask them to. What's said in there stays in there.

At the end somebody will probably ask if you're coming back and might write a number down for you. Take it. You don't have to use it.

What is SMART Recovery, and how is it different

SMART stands for Self Management and Recovery Training. It's the main alternative to the 12-step fellowships, and it's worth knowing it exists, because a lot of people write off meetings altogether when what they actually didn't get on with was one particular room.

The differences, plainly. There are no steps and no sponsor. There's no higher power and nothing religious in it. You're not asked to call yourself an addict or an alcoholic, or to say anything about yourself you'd rather not. And it isn't a round of people telling their week. It's closer to a practical workshop, run by somebody trained, working through tools: what using actually costs you set against what it gives you, what sets you off, and how to sit through a craving without acting on it. You keep going until you don't need it, rather than for life.

Neither one is the better programme and anybody telling you otherwise is selling something. The steps have kept people alive for eighty-odd years. So has SMART. Plenty of people do both. The only test that matters is whether you'd go back.

SMART Recovery Doncaster is on 01302 360090. There are two local groups, one that runs in Polish and one that's women only, and there are more meetings online. Both local ones are in the list below. Days and times move, so check the UK meeting finder or ring that number rather than trusting a day you read on a website.

How to find a meeting near you, in Doncaster or the villages

We don't hold meeting times, and we're not going to start. They change. Rooms get lost, a group moves night, another one folds, and the website that copied the list three years ago is still telling people to turn up. If it's taken you three weeks to work up to walking through a door and you find an empty hall, that's usually the end of it. So we'd rather point you at the people who actually know.

Two ways, both better than a search engine.

Ring the helpline and ask what's nearest. There's a person on the end of it, normally somebody who's been where you are, and they'll tell you where and when.

• Alcoholics Anonymous, 0800 917 7650. Free, 24 hours a day.
• Narcotics Anonymous, 0300 999 1212, 10am to midnight.
• Cocaine Anonymous, 0800 612 0225.
• SMART Recovery Doncaster, 01302 360090.

Or use their own meeting finders, which are the only lists kept current by the people running the meetings. Put your postcode into alcoholics-anonymous.org.uk, ukna.org or uk.meetings.smartrecovery.org.

The one address we can give you ourselves: Narcotics Anonymous meets at the Aspire Coffee Lounge on Thorne Road, in town. It's in the list below. Ring NA or check ukna.org for the time before you set off.

If you're out in one of the villages, say so when you ring, and ask what's reachable rather than what's closest on a map. That can include meetings just over the Doncaster border, which are sometimes an easier bus than getting into the middle of town. And a lot of people deliberately go somewhere nobody knows them. That isn't cheating, it's common.

All of them run online meetings as well, on the same finders. Worth knowing if you've no transport, or you can't face a room yet.

Things nobody tells you

You don't have to believe in God. The higher power thing puts a lot of people off before they've even been. There are people in those rooms who've been atheists for thirty years. If it still grates after a few goes, SMART Recovery is the non-religious one, further up this page.

One meeting isn't a fair test. Same fellowship, same town, and one room can feel completely different from the next, so if the first was wrong it's a fact about that room.

Whether you can get to six is another matter. Six evenings out is six lots of childcare, six lifts or six fares, and six goes at walking in cold. If that isn't your life, that's not you lacking willpower. Say it when you ring the helpline and ask what runs in the daytime, what's online and whether anybody local shares a lift. Online meetings count. They're not the reserve team.

If you turn up in a state, most groups will let you stay as long as you're not disrupting it, and will ask you not to share that night. Most groups won't throw you out. We can't promise it for every room, because every group runs itself and we don't run any of them.

And if you hate it, you're not beyond help. You were in the wrong room. Try a different one.

If you're planning to stop tonight

Read this before you do. If you drink heavily every day, or you're on benzos, stopping dead on your own can kill you. That isn't us being dramatic. It causes fits and delirium tremens and people die of it. Same story if you've had a break from opiates: your tolerance has dropped and what you used to do could finish you now. It's all set out, along with how to get naloxone free in Doncaster, on our get help page. Two minutes.

Which to try first

Go by what's on tonight rather than which fellowship is theoretically the right fit for you. Turning up matters more than choosing correctly.

There's a women-only SMART Recovery group in Doncaster. It's in the list below and the day and time are on the SMART finder. Some AA and Al-Anon meetings are women only too, and the helplines will know which and where.

And if the whole meeting model isn't for you, the sober social groups are a gentler way in. No readings, no shares, just company that isn't drinking.

Meetings sit alongside treatment, not instead of it. If you're drinking every day or using opiates, ring Aspire Doncaster as well, on 03000 213 900. Most people in those rooms have done both.

If it's gambling rather than drink or drugs, Gamblers Anonymous is on 0330 094 0322. And if you're here because of somebody else's drinking or using, Al-Anon is on 0800 0086 811, with the local options for families on our family and loved ones page.