Group History
Everlasting Sobriety history
Everlasting Sobriety started on 31 October 2015. Like many other meetings, it started with just a couple alcoholics talking to each other on a regular basis.
Two English speaking AA friends lived in Berlin and a newcomer friend lived in a small city in Sweden. Due to the Swedish city only having one meeting in English, the newcomer and his Berlin friends decided to meet once a week on Skype to chat informally about AA and alcoholism.
After a few weeks, all three members decided to invite members from their home face to face groups to the meeting, slowly increasing it in size by word of mouth. At this point it was on Skype audio and was invite only. We just had one meeting a week back then. They decided at this point that they were on to something and they formalised the meeting and started to conduct the meeting in accordance with the traditions of a typical AA meeting. None of them had ever been to any other online meeting before and never set out to start one, but, with the help and advice of members of other European online AA meetings and the European Online Intergroup, they got together a meeting format and advertised the meeting on the AA Continental European Region website.
The meeting evolved from there and grew from strength to strength, and with a strong group conscience and the help of a higher power, they slowly expanded to 4 nights a week as numbers and demand grew. We remain to this day at 4 meetings a week with an average attendance of 30-40 per night.
When Covid 19 lockdowns started in the English-speaking world, the demand for online meetings spiked and Skype became not fit for purpose. As a group we voted to change our meeting platform to Zoom so we could better deliver our message to the still suffering alcoholic.
We continue at Everlasting Sobriety to have a strong, friendly and humorous fellowship, and continue to promote and offer sponsorship to anyone who wishes to embark on the 12step recovery journey.