Intergroup And Me

Audio Version

When I came to Alcoholics Anonymous there were several groups locally; I attended meetings
regularly, but the home group I ended up in was particularly small.

Basically, it was just three or four old-timers and me, this newcomer. They had done their time in the
meeting, setting it up and clearing away, they seemed to be set in their ways, the opener and the
tea-maker were one and the same person. This was the way it was, as the days turned into weeks
and the weeks into months.

They spoke about service but there appeared to be no service role for me, or so I thought until one
of them said “It’s Intergroup soon” and suggested I could go there as our GSR. “OK,” I said, “What’s
Intergroup and what’s a GSR?” I was to discover it was a whole new experience with a degree of
responsibility.

I represented my home group and met others doing the same for theirs. I learnt that AA wasn’t just
my home group and those around it – it was far bigger, and there was an opportunity too for 12-
Step work. I was invited to go on the helpline by the co-ordinator, a Telephone Liaison Officer. The
Employment Liaison Officer asked me to join him at a Job Centre for a presentation and it was there
that I realised the wider relevance of the AA Preamble. He used it to explain what AA is, and what it
isn’t.

Being involved at Intergroup has deepened my sobriety and shown me how to get on in the wider
world outside the Fellowship. Apart from seeing a newcomer get sober, nothing lifts my spirits and
gladdens my heart more than when a group of professionals at a presentation realise that we aren’t
‘weak-willed’, that alcoholism is a disease, that we are powerless over alcohol and we just live one
day at a time. They suddenly get it and so do I – recovery through service.

A grateful member