1st Sunday of each month at 1:00 PM to 2:30 PM (Eastern Time)
4615 Chem. de la Côte-Sainte-Catherine, Montréal, QC H3W 1M1
Meeting format:
1. Introduction
Good day and welcome to The VA Way meeting. My name is _______ and I will be your moderator today. This meeting is for persons who have been victims, perpetrators and/or rescuers in the cycle of violence. Please note that we ask people to be on time to the meetings. Bathrooms are located near the stairs on this floor and at the bottom of the stairs.
2. Serenity Prayer
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.
3. Read or ask a Volunteer to read the Preamble for Violence Anonymous:
Violence Anonymous is a program for people who, through shared experience, strength, hope and honesty, are recovering from violent behavior. Whether the violence happened during adulthood or childhood, Violence Anonymous welcomes everyone who wants to stop the emotional, physical or psychological violence in their lives.
Are you ready to stop the cycle of violence in your relationships? So are we.
Violence is any pattern of harmful thinking, action or behavior that has an adverse or damaging effect on others or ourselves. Some examples are the use of deceit, manipulation, neglect, threat, abuse and misuse of power, position or force. Generally these expressions of violence occur when a person or group is triggered.
A trigger is our internal reaction to a person, place, thing, situation or thought. Some catalysts for triggers are fear, threat, past trauma, limiting beliefs, shame or unmet needs. When triggered, the violence addict may, consciously or unconsciously, react with violence to assert power and control over people and circumstance.
Even if these incidents occur only once or occasionally, they instill fear of future violence. Regular use of violent behaviors makes up a larger system of abuse.
These are some of the ways violence is carried out:
- Intimidation
- Manipulation and Control
- Entitlement
- Emotional Abuse
- Psychological Abuse
- Physical Abuse
- Sexual Violence or Abuse
- Isolation
- Minimizing, Denying, or Blaming
- Gaslighting
- Using Children
- Economic or Financial Abuse
- Shaming
- Rescuing
- Victim Thinking
- Sexism
- Racism
- Casteism or Classism
- Coercion or Threats
- Spiritual or Religious Violence
We have found that without a spiritual awakening, this condition is progressive, and untreated can result in damaged or destroyed relationships, isolation, deterioration of physical health, financial difficulty, insanity, imprisonment and death. For those of you who are sincerely willing to change, there is hope. May you find it now.
Violence Anonymous is not affiliated with any public, or private organization, political movement, ideology or religion; we take no position on outside issues. Our primary purpose is to overcome violence and to carry this message of recovery to those who still suffer.
4. Read or ask a Volunteer to read:
Welcome! Violence Anonymous is a confidential fellowship, allowing us to speak without fear of anyone judging or commenting on what we have to say. The things you hear are spoken in confidence and should be treated as confidential. Anyone with a desire to stop participating in drama and violence is welcome in Violence Anonymous. If you are serious about arresting your violent behavior, VA can help. Whether you identify yourself as a victim, rescuer or persecutor, recovering from an addiction to violence is a serious challenge. The solution is here if you work for it.
We suggest that you attend at least 6 meetings before deciding if Violence Anonymous is for you, and we urge you to place principles before personalities. By attending meetings and working the 12 Steps of VA, we have found a solution that breaks the cycle of violence and leads to safety, security, and meaningful connections in our lives. We are learning to arrest our addiction to violent behavior, one day at a time.
We encourage you to stay after the meeting for fellowship, ask for member phone numbers in the contact request time, and check out our newcomers’ info and pamphlet on the home page of our website (violenceanonymous.org).
5. Read or ask a Volunteer to read How It Works
Our experience tells what it was like on the drama triangle, how we recovered, and what our lives are like today. We lived as victims, persecutors and rescuers. We once believed that people, places and things could make our lives unbearable, but came to understand that it was our own twisted thinking that kept us imprisoned in the cycle of violent thought, emotion and behavior. If you have decided you need the same liberation that we in VA have found, and you are willing to face all of your fears, then you are ready to take the 12 Steps of Violence Anonymous.
Here are the steps we took, which are suggested as a program of recovery:
- We admitted we were powerless over violence – that our lives had become unmanageable.
- Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
- Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God.
- Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
- Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
- Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
- Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings.
- Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
- Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
- Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
- Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood God, praying only for knowledge of God’s will for us and the power to carry that out.
- Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
Many of us feared that we would fail and return to our old way of living. Do not be discouraged. There is no right or wrong way to proceed with this program. The point is that we begin and, just for today, do the best we can with the skills we have. We strive for spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection. We are not perfect, nor do we need to be, to recover from violent behavior. All we need is a sincere willingness to start.
And so we begin with the admission that:
- we are powerless over violence and our lives have become unmanageable;
- probably no human power could change our violent behavior;
- God could and would if we asked.
6. Member Introduction
At this time we introduce ourselves by first name only. This is not to embarrass you, but to get to know you.
7. In Meeting De-Esclation Tools. Choose one and practice it for 2-3 minutes:
| Change Location Burn Off Adrenaline Heart Math Deep Breathing Circular Breathing | Sustained Out-Breath Prayer Meditation Body Sensations Thank Goodness! |
8. Signs of Being Triggered
- creating a predictive story (usually a very negative story of doom and gloom)
- difficulty finding words to describe what we are
- feeling or thinking
- child-like thinking
- generally adrenalized
- “fight” mode
- “flight” mode
- “freeze” mode
- cravings
- compulsions
- feeling “off” in any way
- auditory sensitivity to certain sounds
- dissociation
9. Checking-in “How are you today?”. (~10 minutes for the time keeper to let people know how much time they have to share)
Now is the time for individual check-ins. We ask that there be no cross talk – which means that we keep the focus on ourselves and address our remarks to the group and not to any individual.
10. Trigger Processing (25 minutes)
Please note there is no professional therapist working for our group. We are all equals here. VA is NOT a replacement, but an addition to therapy and all other professional services, as needed. The only requirement for VA membership is a desire to stop participating in the cycle of violence.
A trigger is our internal reaction to a person, place, thing, situation, or thought. Triggers can be mild or intense, and our reactions can include emotions, thoughts, beliefs, physical sensations, and sensory perceptions. When we are negatively triggered, we view ourselves as victims. We unconsciously regress and relive a past experience where we were victimized or acquired disempowering feelings or beliefs. This places us in the drama triangle, making it difficult to think, speak, or act without causing harm.
In recovery, we recognize that when we are negatively triggered, we are at risk of engaging in compulsive behavior. So we stop and process the trigger. Processing a trigger involves exploring the underlying trauma and neutralizing our reaction to it.
A ‘handle’ gives us something to work with when processing a trigger. A handle can be a sensation, emotion, thought, belief, story, pattern, memory, etc. It gives us a way to grab hold of the trigger and plug it into a processing technique.
- Tapping
- Regression Technique
- Reframing – Graduation Exercise
- Reframing – The Story
- NVC Technique
- TAT™
- Thought Rhyming
- Body Talk
- Deeply Acknowledge
11. Voluntary Sharing (20 minutes)
Please refrain from making remarks during another person’s share, and save questions and comments for after the meeting.
12. Silly Time (4 minutes)
- Silly movements (eyes open or closed)
- Silly sounds
- Laughing
- Whistling
- Howling
- Silly faces
- Silly dance
13. 7th Tradition
Our 7th Tradition states that every VA group ought to be fully self supporting, declining outside contributions. We ask that you give what you can. The funds are used to pay the expenses of the fellowship. Contributions may be made on the 7th Tradition page on violenceanonymous.org. We’ll now give time for those who wish to make a contribution to find that page. Know that if you can’t give now, your presence is more important than your money.
14. VA Related Announcements
Now is the time for both VA and non-VA announcements. First are there any VA announcements that affect this meeting or VA as a whole? Are there any non-VA announcements about tools or outside resources that pertain to VA recovery?
15. Closing
The opinions expressed here were strictly those of the person who gave them. Take what you like and leave the rest. The things you heard were spoken in confidence and should be treated as confidential. Keep them within the walls of this room. Talk to each other, reason things out with someone else, but let there be no gossip or criticism of one another. Instead, let the understanding, love, and peace of the program grow in you one day at a time.
Please recognize that it takes time to heal old traumas. Feeling difficult feelings no longer needs to follow a destructive cycle. By choosing the live the VA Way, you can develop a safety plan, read literature, attend meetings, find a sponsor, and connect to spiritual principles rather than futile attempts to control those feelings. We are so glad that you have the courage to live the VA Way.
You may have questions about VA, including sponsorship, so please stick around for the after-meeting. Will all who care to join me in the Serenity Prayer?
“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”