The meeting directory exists to do one thing: help someone who needs a room tonight find a real one. Every rule below serves that single purpose. A directory is only useful if everything in it is true — so we would rather list fewer meetings than list one that sends a person to a locked door.
What we list
Every meeting in the directory passes the same six tests, whatever fellowship or group it belongs to:
- Mutual aid, not service delivery. The meeting is run by people in recovery, for people in recovery. Groups facilitated by paid staff as part of a treatment service — however good — are services, not mutual aid, and belong in a different directory.
- Addiction recovery, specifically. Substance and behavioural addiction, and the family and friends affected by it. General mental-health, wellbeing and bereavement groups do vital work, but they are not what this directory is for.
- Free, with no funnel. Nothing to pay, and no commercial interest behind the meeting. We never list groups operated by or for treatment providers, rehabs or referral services, whatever they are called. Listings in this directory cannot be bought — not now, not ever.
- Recurring, at a fixed time and place. A meeting you can build a week around — not a one-off event, a course with a start date, or a helpline.
- Publicly verifiable. We only list meetings we can trace to a first-hand source: a fellowship’s own published meeting list, the venue that hosts it, local press coverage, or a submission from the group itself. We do not copy other directories.
- Open door. You can simply turn up. No referral, no assessment, no membership requirement beyond the fellowship’s own (usually a desire to stop). Where a meeting is “closed” in the twelve-step sense — for people who want to stop, rather than supporters or observers — we say so plainly, and explain what that means.
The kinds of meeting you will find
Twelve-step fellowships. Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, Cocaine Anonymous, Overeaters Anonymous, and other fellowships as their meetings can be verified. These listings are checked against each fellowship’s own published meeting information and re-checked regularly.
Twelve-step only, by design. This directory does one thing deeply rather than several things half-way: it aims to be the most complete, most accurate directory of twelve-step meetings in the UK. Other routes into recovery exist and do valuable work — SMART Recovery, for example, runs CBT-based mutual-aid meetings across the UK. Rather than republish a partial picture of another programme’s meetings, we will always point you to their own finder: smartrecovery.org.uk.
What we never list
- Treatment services, clinics or staff-run groups (including free ones run by providers)
- Anything connected to paid treatment, rehab marketing or referral fees
- Paid groups, courses or therapy of any kind
- One-off events, retreats or workshops
- General wellbeing, mental-health or social groups, however worthwhile
- Online-only groups we cannot verify to a first-hand source
How listings stay true
Every listing shows when it was last verified. Visitors can confirm a meeting is still running with one tap, or report a change — a new time, a new venue, a meeting that has ended — and a person reviews every report before anything changes. Meetings reported as permanently closed are marked, not hidden, until we can confirm either way.
Online meetings
Online meetings are held to the same tests as everything else here: they must be run by a fellowship we can verify against its own published meeting list. We list the day, time and fellowship — never the joining link, meeting ID or passcode. Those change, and publishing them is how directories end up sending people to dead rooms; instead, every online listing points you to the fellowship’s own page, which always carries the current joining details. All times shown are UK and Ireland time.
Respect for the fellowships
Stepwise Recovery is an independent publisher. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to any fellowship or programme we list. We publish meeting facts — day, time, venue — never members’ names, stories or anything that could compromise anonymity. If any group or fellowship asks not to be listed, we remove the listing the same day, no questions asked. And we will always tell you to confirm details through a fellowship’s own finder before travelling.
Getting a meeting listed
If you are part of a meeting that passes the tests above and is not listed, add it at /add-a-meeting/. Every submission is checked by a person against a first-hand source before it appears — this usually takes a few days. Something wrong with an existing listing? Every meeting page has a “Report a change” button.
Questions about this policy: contact us.