Coronavirus: Where Meetings Fit Into the Scheme of Things

Alcoholics Anonymous is a matter of personal survival for me. If I don't stay sober then I will die. By putting staying sober ahead of everything else I have managed to get through the last 42 years without having to take a drink. Here I try to look at the significance of attending AA meetings and the place that AA meetings take in my approach to sobriety.

I was relatively young when I stopped drinking. However, I am now much older and have a number of additional conditions that go with that state: COPD, Heart conditions etc. So I am among that group of people for whom Coronavirus is seriously life threatening. Expert advice is saying self-isolation. After 42 years, Alcoholics Anonymous and its meetings are a very deep habit. So the question I have to face is, "What happens when meetings are suspended because of Coronavirus?"

The matter of priorities is important. It's clear that in order for my sobriety to be secure I need to put staying sober ahead of everything else, without exception. When AA started there were no AA meetings. People getting and staying sober preceded the formation of groups and meetings. There were and are many examples of what Bill W referred to as "loners": Travelling salesmen, merchant seamen and servicemen away in foreign countries both during war and peacetime. Similarly attending AA meetings in no way guarantees sobriety. The kind of attendance at AA meetings that leads to sobriety is generally a reflection of an altered internal attitude. I've known plenty of people over the years stay sober without attending AA meetings. They do, however, usually have a way of living that is conducive to sobriety. I've also known plenty of people who go to many, many AA meetings and still end up drunk. I've often thought that if an individual was isolated at the North Pole with no access to the internet or telephone then he could be capable of staying sober simply with a copy of the Big Book. AA would never have got off the ground if that were not the case. However, the minute you place a telephone just down the road from his igloo then our North Pole man would want to avail himself of the communication opportunity that it provided. We don't like change. That's all well and good, unfortunately change is inevitable. My current home group has been running for 20 years, it is in its third venue.

I have always been a great believer in using the telephone. A few months ago a younger member talked about the fact that I had sponsored her into using the telephone (not the telephone service, but the telephone). My approach to using the phone is fairly simple: I treat it much the same as sharing in a meeting. I dial, if someone responds I ask them if they, "Have a few minutes." If they do then I simply start talking as if I was sharing in a meeting, and I continue till I have finished. I keep polite niceties to an absolute minimum. If they want to share back I let them. I have a network of people who operate this way. 

What else can I do? I have access to the internet. There are a number of video conferencing systems available now which can be set up at little or no cost. My Home Group is currently in process of evaluating a couple of these. Attempting to set up these video meetings acts to reassure regardless of whether such meetings are needed or not.

I have never confused the Group Conscience with a "group conscience meeting". The Group Conscience is something that exists both inside and outside the meeting. It is the sum total of all the communication between the regular members of the group in regard to how the group conducts its affairs (both at the time of the meeting and between.) While I doubt that a meeting can survive long without a group, a group can quite happily survive without a meeting.

 Lea N, Cambridge