Meeting Format

You do have some flexibility in your meeting, but every official meeting requires the following:

• Welcome
• Open meeting with Prayer (Serenity Prayer suggested)
• Preamble
• Introductions
• Readings (Signs, Steps, Tradition of the month, Promises)
• Reminder of Confidentiality & Anonymity, CrossTalk, Sharing Timie
• 7th Tradition
• Announcements
• End meeting with reminder of confidentiality
• Closing Prayer

Options for Virtual Meetings

Zoom (free for 45 minute meeting)

Skype

FaceTime

GoogleMeet (free for 45 minute meeting)

Meetings have some flexibility, depending on group conscience.  For example:

• Require that everyone in the meeting have their cameras on. 
• Allow some people to stay off camera.
• Close your meeting to attendees immediately after the published start time. 
• Allow admittance throughout the hour.
• Open your meeting early and allow fellowship before the meeting
• Stay after the meeting for fellowship, extended sharing or to answer questions.  

Sample standard meeting script

Virtual or in person

Welcome to Spenders Anonymous

Spenders Anonymous is a 12-Step fellowship based on the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12-step fellowships

Spenders Anonymous offers strength, hope and experience for people who need to work toward serenity in their relationship with money. Our experience is that we cannot do this alone, but in fellowship with others, the steps and our higher power, 

The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop overspending.There are no dues or fees to “join.”

Spenders Anonymous is not a religious program and has no affiliation with any religion or faith tradition. It does, however, ask you to connect with a power greater than yourself. In Spenders, you get to decide who or what that higher power is.

Opening

Let’s open this meeting with a moment of silence and follow that with the “We Version” of the Serenity Prayer. 

Moment of silence …

The We version of the Serenity Prayer …

 Higher Power, grant US the serenity to accept the things WE cannot change.

The courage to accept the things WE can,

And, the wisdom to know the difference.

IIntroduction

Let’s take a minute to go around the room and introduce ourselves by first name only. Let us know If you are a newcomer either to this meeting or Spenders Anonymous itself. This is siimply an introduction, not share time.

f you are a newcomer and have questions, a few of us will stay after the meeting closes to answer questions.

(Leader starts introductions)

Hi, I’m (Name), calling from (state or city) and I am a compulsive spender/shopper.

Service (Step 12)

We believe that providing service at meetings is a key component of our recovery and is one way we can carry the message of recovery to compulsive spenders

(Leader: All readings are listed in the script, so you can just share this screen)

Service as readers: 

(Leader, ask for readers just before the readings)

Who will read the Spenders Anonymous steps for us tonight. This and all readings will be shared on the screen,\

The Steps 

1.We admitted we were powerless over spending and money and that our lives had become unmanageable. 

2. Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. 

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of a Higher Power. 

4. Made a searching and fearless moral and financial inventory of ourselves.

5. Admitted to our Higher Power, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. 

6. Were entirely ready to have our Higher Power remove all these defects of character.

7. Humbly asked our Higher Power to remove our shortcomings. 

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all. 

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. 

10. Continued to take personal and financial inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it. 

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with our Higher Power, praying only for knowledge of our Higher Power’s will for us and the power to carry that out. 

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to compulsive spenders and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Who will read the tradition of the month?

12 Traditions of Spenders Anonymous 

1. Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon group unity. 
2. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.  
3. The only requirement for Spenders Anonymous membership is a desire to stop spending money, time, energy and ourselves. 
4. Each group should be self-governing except in matters affecting other groups or Spender Anonymous as a whole. 
5. Spenders Anonymous has but one primary purpose — to carry its message to the compulsive spender who still suffers. 
6. Spenders Anonymous ought never endorse, finance, or lend the Spenders Anonymous name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property and prestige divert us from our primary purpose.
7.  Every Spenders Anonymous group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions. 
8.  Spenders Anonymous should remain forever non-professional, but our service center may employ special workers 
9. Spenders Anonymous, as such, ought never be organized, but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve. 
10. Spenders Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the Spenders Anonymous name ought never be drawn into public controversy.
11. Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion. We need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, films and television and all social media.
12. Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of the Spenders Anonymous program, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.

Who will read the daily meditation?

Leader can chose: 

AA’s daily reflections

https://www.aa.org/daily-reflections

Daily Reflections | Alcoholics Anonymous

Or

Any meditation book dealing with addiction or overspending.

Who will read the tools of Spenders Anonymous?

The Tools of Spenders Anonymous 

Spending Plan, Numbers Tracking, Abstinence, Anonymity, Exercise, Humor, Meditation, Meetings, Phone Calls (Texts), Play, Prayer, Readings, Service, Slogans, Sponsorship and Writing/journaling

Sharing

Tonight’s topic: 

(We suggest a topic just to get people started. See weekly topics below)

We will share until 7:45 pm. (eastern) 

If we have a large number of participants, (24+) we will split up into breakout rooms.

To share, please raise your hand (virtually or physically) and limit your shares to 3 minutes. We will have a timer. Who is willing to be a timer?

Before we share, understand that you are free to share on tonight’s topic, your week, how you got to Spenders Anonymous or any burning desire you might have. We ask that everyone have the opportunity for an uninterrupted turn. You are not required to share.

And that brings us to:

Crosstalk

In 12-step Programs, we do not crosstalk Crosstalk is defined as:

• Interrupting or talking while another person is sharing.
• Directly addressing another person instead of the group.
• Giving advice to others during the meeting (advice should be given after the meeting, if requested).
• Stating opinions or commenting on what someone else has shared.
• Engaging in back-and-forth conversations between individuals.
• Questioning the person speaking.
• 
  

Announcements 

Does anyone have any SA, DA announcements or announcements on recovery books, workshops or websites?

A list of all meetings is on the Meeting tab

Contact

Phone calls and texts are an important tool of Recovery. Isolation is a hallmark of shame and will sabotage your recovery. Please leave your name & how you’d like to be contacted in the Chat. 

7th Tradition 

Every Spenders Anonymous group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions. 

Now we pass the virtual "basket." Newcomers are asked not to contribute. 

(list here how to contribute, what youir current balance is and your current group expenses,

Who will read the promises

The Promises 

1. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. 
2. We will not regret the past, nor wish to shut the door on it. 
3. We will comprehend the word serenity, and we will know peace. 
4. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. 
5. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. 
6. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows.
7. Self-seeking will slip away. 
8. Our whole attitude and outlook on life will change. 
9. Fear of people will leave us. 
10. Fear of economic insecurity will leave us. 
11. We will intuitively know how to handle situations that used to baffle us. 
12. We will suddenly realize that our Higher Power is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.

Right now, these promises may seem extravagant or even impossible. The reality is, they are possible. Thousands of people just like you who found dthemselves saddledwith spending and shopping addictions, find that they are coming true. Maybe slowly, maybe quickly, they will come true for us, if we work this progam with openness, honesty and determination.

Closing 

The opinions expressed here tonight are those of the person who gave them. Take what you like and leave the rest. 

Let there be no gossip or criticism among us, but let the love, understanding and peace of the program grow among us, one day at a time. 

In closing, we offer this prayer; a prayer of leader’s choice:

 DA Third Step Prayer: 

Higher Power, I stand before you ready to be transformed. I place myself in your hands, Guide me on my recovery path. Remove my compulsive spending and debting, my self-centered fear 

and my own self-will. May I shine to others as a beacon of your power. May I choose to remain on your path always. 

Spenders Prayer:

God, help me toOur a trust from you to be used as you would have me use them spend wisely and to buy fairly,

remembering that money and the things of this world are a trust from You,

to be used as You would have me use them.

And, help me also to remember

that the best things in life are not things!

Longer version of the Serenity Prayer

Higher Power, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

Courage to change the things I can

And the wisdom to know the difference.

Grant me patience for the changes that take time,

Appreciation of all that I have,

Tolerance of those with different struggles

And the strength to get up and try again.

Modern Serenity prayer:

“Higher Power, grant me the serenity to stop beating myself up for not doing things perfectly, the courage to forgive myself because I’m working on doing better,and the wisdom to know that You already love me just the way I am.”

One day at a time