August 2021

Welcome to the August edition of our beloved SHARE magazine. August being the eighth month we feature articles on Step Eight, “Made a list….” For me this Step involves action - making a list. My sobriety journey has been very much about taking action, not sitting down and thinking but action!

The action for Step Eight is to get on and make a list, a list of people I may have harmed. I don’t need to worry about actually making amends to the people on this list at the moment, I need to get on with writing the list. Then having written this list I need to go through it and to become willing to make amends to them. If I find myself saying “I won’t make amends to them!” then I probably need to have a good chat with my sponsor about acceptance.

Tradition Eight states that, “AA should remain forever non-professional.” So work I do for the Fellowship of AA is given for free. If as an officer of AA trying to carry the message at intergroup then I may claim travel expenses, postage costs etc. But I make no claim for my time. That I freely give to this Felllowship that has saved my life.

Spotlight on Service-Telephones. Many, many of us have come to the Fellowship through the AA ntelephone service. We have a National Helpline number- 0800 9177 650 as well as local helplines all over the country. These are all operated by volunteering members of our Fellowship. If you would like to get involved in the AA Telephone Service just get in touch with your local Telephone Liaison Officer (TLO) who is a member of your local intergroup. Many find this service to be both rewarding and a great help to maintaining their sobriety.