A Unique mid-Morning Meeting

Lea and I have been attending the 9:30 AM meeting at the local Alano Club for over a year.  It is a unusual meeting with a dozen or score of people in generally early sobriety finding a way to stay sober (or at least keep coming back) with lots of support for newcomers by newcomers.  Members are encouraged to attend other meetings to learn about getting longer term sobriety, but it is a great place to start for those new to AA or for those of us that have struggled to stay sober.

Today we talked about the power of prayer.  The reading discussed about the only people that don’t believe in prayer are the scoffers that failed to persevere in trying to pray.  The sharing was universal in support of member’s experiences with prayer.  I certainly left feeling better and good about the meeting in general.   One lady was at her first meeting—ever—with 8 months of white knuckle sobriety.

On Monday,  the person with the most time in sobriety had 27 days although there was maybe decades of meeting attendance by a dozen members.  That could easily sound terrible until one considers that at least we kept coming back which is a lot better than what happens to most alcoholics that have gone to meetings and then relapsed.  It was especially poignant to here from a mother and her adult son that were both in early recovery.  The son did not know what his sobriety date was although he stopped drinking almost a year ago before spending 8 months in jail. She shared tears of joy with her renewed miracle of recovery after having first gotten sober 20 years ago and then going back out.  It was heartwarming to see a family reunited so quickly.

I am grateful for our newcomers meeting that is so well structured and supportive of those of us in early sobriety.  Instead of sucking to be new again, we get to celebrate being sober together.  That is a lot better than any of the possible alternatives available elsewhere today.