"Women's Group feedback"

It was great to be able to share my concerns and feelings within a safe environment without having the fear of feeling judged. We were able to share other perspectives and tools to help us in our recovery. It was great to always end on a positive note (affirmations). I really like being part of the process of forming the group boundaries.

The group has encouraged me to look for other resources about topics that have been discussed as this awareness made me realise issues that i needed to deal with and some behaviours that i needed to manage better. I am hoping that its temporary but i have gone back to hating my life and feeling stuck. Its not been enough to change life long habits but it did almost give me another reason to continue to stop my drinking, but this motivation has gone now. It did help me to feel that i am not alone in what im going through and it was comforting to hear that i am not the only one going through the challenges in life i am now facing.

I feel our challenges and requests to extend the group where not explored enough and the last session could do with being structured differently to bring about awareness of ending support and next steps. The end of the course brought up many emotions and concerns about regressing that were not discussed. It would help if a plan (document) was designed to help each person realise how far they have come, what to do next and an action plan to cope in times of need. Evidence suggests that in order for supportive relationships to develop, it requires 20 hours of time with each other, therefore connections within the group were not strong enough after 8 weeks in order to reach out to each other outside of the service. 

Some anger also came up due to a lack of equal opportunities as the men's group is open ended and they therefore get support for longer in a same sex environment. This doesn't give out feelings of being inclusive.

It may also have helped to add questions each week to aid in self reflection as well as opportunities to address our self esteem within the group or core beliefs as some people are unaware that they have these blocks or patterns of behaviour.

There was no signposting at the end of the group and i feel that the whole group would have benefitted from it being longer. Personally for me, it now feels like i am going back to having no support network again.