Welcome Home!
“Hello, my name is – and I am an alcoholic”. This is how I introduce myself at meetings nowadays and in doing so I believe I am following the example and suggestions of the early members of AA. Another suggestion I have found helpful, a pleasure and a privilege, is to be part of a home group.
I go to a home group primarily to stay sober and help carry the message to the still-suffering alcoholic; but it gives me so much more. I have friends who know the real me and who I can talk to about my concerns and just chat with. I am inspired by the stories of others. I have a laugh. I meet newcomers who remind me both what it is like to still be drinking, and how powerful the Programme is in early recovery. I have an opportunity to sponsor. An opportunity to do service. I am given a lovely cup of AA tea. I am sure there are other things which I can’t call to mind at the moment, but having a home group with face-to-face meetings has been one of the foundation stones of my recovery. I missed them during Covid and made the most of what was available but was one of the first to ensure that as soon as it was possible my home group restarted. I was in the hall measuring the distance between chairs and preparing notices so Tradition 7 could be collected without passing a pot and many other things which were necessary to ensure a meeting could take place in those times. At that time my home group was a Saturday evening meeting in Luton.
Five years later I was considering moving up to the Highlands. Having this ‘new freedom’ is one of the gifts of sobriety but I was still very nervous. There were a few real-life challenges: could I afford it? Fear around moving up by myself and all that would entail in terms of making a new start. Work involved in making the new home comfortable. Most important though, was how would I live out my sobriety in this new place? Yes there are online meetings but as I have said, live meetings have a special place for me in recovery.
I had been in the Highlands when I first thought of moving and had returned to view a possible home but was still undecided. Then researching what was available I discovered there was a nearby meeting in Ardgay. So, I arranged another trip and travelled up overnight, attended the meeting the next night and returned south on the third night. After some difficulties finding the meeting I walked in and was given the same welcome I received as a newcomer. Here was the companionship, the sense of being known even among strangers, of a shared purpose and a shared Higher Power. Most important for me, at the time, was the sense that I could move up to the Highlands and all would be well, no matter what. That is what I needed and what AA has given me in good times and difficult ones. More than anything else, attending that meeting enabled me to make the decision to move.
Five months later I attended the same meeting, though it had changed venue to Bonar Bridge, with many of the same people and receiving the same welcome, and was able to make it my home group.
That was fifteen months ago. I do online meetings; I have started to become part of the community where I live, but most of all I am a member of that home group and have experienced all the things I spoke about above. I am very grateful to the people who have established and sustained this meeting in a small village and grateful for the welcome I have received in AA, both in this meeting and the others in the wider area. I now have a new home group and home is where the heart is.
Welcome home.
Anonymous