|
Inside this issues General Service launches experiment designed to improve service to East Bay AA meetings . Page 3 * * * A member explores the origins of an AA meeting mainstay -- the Serenity Prayer Page 4 * * * Local East Bay AA Archives: Where local AA came from and how it has changed over the decades Page 4 * * * The 10th Step: What a member wrote 20 years ago … and what East Bay members say today Page 5 * * * East Bay members’ favorite Big Book passages Page 12 * * * New feature: Handy meeting changes guide (new meetings, moves, changed formats) Page 13 |
|
October 2008 |
|
Community News |
|
i‘m told that I am weird, that I am a "freak," well . . . other things - and by AA members. I go to meetings; I reach my hand out; I share and I have a commitment. I have been asked to speak at meetings, I have a sponsor, and I have twenty years of sobriety.
Maybe a little background is called for.
I was, at one time, East Bay Intergroup Chairperson. I got to wield the gavel. I found, though, that it was my "people skills" which consisted of being present mostly that actually made it possible for me to be there for members whenever wrinkles developed at the Intergroup meetings. I was thrilled to do it, and it was the culmination, I felt — the reward, of having lived and worked in the East Bay for three years — on my return to the Bay Area shortly after Sept. 11.
I was wrought up with the affairs of the world then, so I threw myself into AA, and it had paid off! I was a big shot!
That was nearly eight years ago. In 2004, once again wrought up with the affairs of the world, I took a professorship at a university in northern Thailand. I got to Thailand, and still being wrought up with the affairs of the world, I had taken off to the nether reaches of the world. I needed something, and then I remembered, "When anyone, anywhere, reaches out for help I want the hand of AA always to be there, and for that, I am responsible."
I started an AA meeting in the jungle - in Chiangrai, Thailand, in a very small and very rural community. I sent the address in to Central Office in Bangkok, the address of a church I found open to the idea of a meeting.
The very first meeting a guy came in with a Buddhist monk to argue with me that AA was a sham and typical American Christian indoctrination. I told him I didn't want to argue with him, that I was there for anyone who wanted to try something that might help them stop drinking. He made a few more jokes about AA and left with his monk in tow.
(Continued on page 20) |
|
And For That I Am Responsible A one-time East Bay “big shot” extends “the hand of AA” through a new meeting in rural Thailand |
|
Here I was, in the jungle, and I wanted the hand of AA to be there. |
|
By Doug H. Oakland |
