Editorial
How rural is rural? Does the term rural also include those who are isolated? I ask this because I came into the Fellowship within a small community, but not overly rural, or not as much as some - we’ve got shops on hand and Inverness is about 45 minutes away. But I was worried people would find out I went to AA - I worked for a large local employer and I thought I was so important that people would care! Our meetings were small (they still are), sometimes we had visitors from the ‘city’ and holiday makers. Before Covid we had four in-person meetings a week in our small area - since Covid this has dropped to three, but they are still all self-supporting and perfectly formed and allow time for people to share.
I’ve always thought preventing isolation can be a forgotten use for Roundabout. Whilst I’ve been involved with Roundabout (possibly about 10 years in various service positions) I have heard of many small, rural meetings that use the articles as their ‘main shares’ for their meeting. People who are in hospital or housebound use the articles to help maintain their sobriety. AA members who simply cannot travel the distance required for an in-person meeting enjoy reading the articles each month and all of these people express their gratitude by submitting articles in return. Our Roundabout magazine is certainly a valuable piece of literature!
Cath W, Editor
[email protected]
0 The Twelve Steps
1 Contents and Preamble
2 The Twelve Traditions
3 Editorial
4 Rural Sobriety
6 Roundabout Wordsearch
7 The Fear Became Stronger
10 Yes or No
11 Rural Communities
13 Drinking at Home
15 Giving Online a Second Try
16-i Conventions and Gatherings
ii-iv Group changes & Intergroups
17 Fellowship Diaries and Calendar
18 The Roundabout Interview
21 Rural Ramble
23 Answers to Wordsearch
24 The Miracle of AA
26 Literature Extracts
29 Roundabout Subscription Form
30 A Decade of Sobriety
33 The Twelve Concepts