DEC 28, 21 .. CENTRAL OFFICES AND SERVICE WORK IN A.A.

The one, and the only, thing that we share with the very first members of the Fellowship of A.A. is working with others. We classify this (working with others) in the general category of performing service work.

When Bill W met Doctor Bob in the gatehouse of the Seiberling Mansion in Akron, Ohio, on Mother's Day of 1935, there was NO A.A. There was Bill W, one alcoholic, meeting another alcoholic, Doctor Bob, and sharing with one another their actual experience of the misery of alcoholism. Service work came even before A.A. began!

In the A.A. Service Structure, there are few things or locations more important than our Central Offices, also called Intergroup Offices. It is at our Central Office where the groups can obtain all of the necessary supplies (especially A.A. literature, books, pamphlets, etc). The Central Office phone number is where anyone interested in A.A. can call for information, where members and out of town visitors can call to find meeting locations, where those in crisis can call for assistance to their drinking problem.

Here in the Bullhead City, Arizona, and the Laughlin, Nevada, areas (called the River Cities) is a small but excellent Central office. This office also serves Lake Havasu City AZ, Kingman AZ, Fort Mohave AZ, Parker AZ and Needles CA.

They have a very nice website.

https://rcco-aa.org/

THE RIVER CITIES CENTRAL OFFICE

The office is located at 603 Marina Blvd, Bullhead City AZ.

In comparison with the Central Offices in the large metropolitan areas, it is modest because of the relatively small population that it serves.

What it may lack in size it sure makes up for in quality.

It is warm, down home, inviting and welcoming. As you will see in the below photos, it is spotless!

The RCCO (River Cities Central Office) is well stocked with A.A. literature.

The RCCO has a roomy conference room that is used for many A.A. activities.

Well there you have it! The very heart of A.A. is service work. One of the hearts of service work are all of the Central Offices throughout the world!

NOV 26, 21 .. HAVE YOU EVER REALLY NEEDED A MEETING AND CAN'T FIND ONE?

"I really need a meeting! 

"Is there a meeting in there where you are?"

Too funny huh? 

Don't ever forget page 132 of the Big Book .. 

But we aren't a glum lot!

"Are you absolutely positive that there is not a meeting in there??"

"Oh All Right. I understand. With no meeting I'll just go and meditate for awhile."

"And?? Acceptance IS the answer!!"

Meditate. Meditate. Meditate.

May the upcoming Holiday Season be one of Joy and Happiness for you and for your loved ones.

And? If you need a meeting and are not able to find one, then try to practice some Acceptance and Meditation.

OCT 28, 21 .. AN IN PERSON / ZOOM HYBRID MEETING ..

Rhetorical Question : Which is best? A Live, In Person Meeting or a Zoom Meeting?

My personal jury remains out, and I think will forever fail to give me a clear answer to this Rhetorical Question : Which is best, a Live, In Person Meeting or a Zoom Meeting?

Having just written the above, the answer just came to me!

Answer : There is no best answer! Both have advantages and both have disadvantages.

Until the Covid-19 pandemic, the worldwide health crisis of the past year and a half, (that I personally date to March of 2020 when it became a stark reality to me in Lompoc, California, when a local club chained its doors shut) there (basically) were no Zoom AA Meetings.

ZOOM MEETINGS

There are a myriad of reasons to support a Zoom Meeting. 

I will not even begin to list all of the reasons to support a Zoom Meeting except to say, IF you need an AA Meeting, a Zoom Meeting is absolutely (with no qualification, restriction, or limitation; totally) better than no meeting at all!

IF you need a meeting, and you are physically unable to attend, or even find, a local, Live In Person Meeting, then a Zoom Meeting is your answer! 

IF you are too ill, or otherwise unable to leave your residence, a Zoom Meeting is an excellent solution. If you think, for one New York Minute, that there are Live, In Person Meetings everywhere, then you have not done enough world travel or even extensive travel here in the United States.

Zoom Meetings however are available 24-hours a day, seven days a week, all over the inhabited world.

LIVE, IN PERSON MEETINGS

What could possibly be a reason NOT to attend a Live, In Person Meeting?

The Covid-19 Panedemic. 

Odd as it is for me to to write this, in my opinion the Covid-19 Pandemic itself has become perhaps the only reason to think about not attending a Live, In Person Meeting. It has been my personal experience, this past year and a half, that many (if not most) of those attending Live, In Person Meetings are NOT wearing masks and the meetings themselves are NOT stressing social distancing. 

No, No, No! I am NOT saying that there are NO, Live, In Person Meetings, following Covid-19 Pandemic protocol suggestions! Possibly 10% of the Live, In Person Meetings ARE serious about being (to the best of their ability) safe in terms of Covid-19 transmission.

Also, the emergence of the Covid-19 vaccines has been a very positive development since this past January of 2021.

HYBRID MEETINGS

A Hybrid Meeting combines a Zoom Meeting with a Live, In Person Meeting. 

At a Hybrid Meeting you have both a Live, In Person Meeting as well as a Zoom Meeting where, to some extent, the people on zoom can see the people in the live meeting and visa versa, the live attendees can, to some degree, see those on the Zoom Meeting.

Today I attended, for the fourth time, a local Hybrid Meeting and it was excellent. The members of this Hybrid Meeting spent a fair sum of money, coupled with some highly technically skilled members, to set it up.

As you can see below, it is nice to be able to see the out of doors.

In many respects, the Hybrid Meeting is an excellent solution during these Covid-19 pandemic times.

SEP 28, 21 .. A RHETORICAL QUESTION ..

Here is the Rhetorical Question : 

Do any of you know how any human being (we will assume another Alcoholic) can instill into another human being the desire to go to any lengths in order to stop drinking alcohol?

Several years ago (it was December of 2018) I was speaking in Kyzyl, Russian Siberia. As was always the case, I never knew what I would find when we (me and Mike my Russian translator) entered into a venue. 

I always assumed it would be an AA meeting or something to do with AA (visiting a rehabilitation center etc). 

When we entered a very large building, I noticed from the people in the corridors (nurses and medical gurneys etc) it was a hospital and I assumed that we would be speaking at an inpatient rehabilitation center within the hospital.

When we got to the top floor, we entered into a large room and we were seated at a table up on a stage. Then, wonder of wonders, into the room flowed an assembly of young men and women wearing white doctor's coats. After everyone was seated, an important (he was the head of the hospital) man came into the room with an aide. After we were formally introducted, he joined us sitting next to me on my right with Mike on my left.

I turned to Mike and asked what was happening. Mike calmly turned to me and said that I was going to address the graduating class of medical students.

I nearly fainted on-the-spot. I am used to talking to groups of AA members or at least other alcoholics wanting to get sober.

I thought silently to myself : What on earth am I going to say to this assembled multitude of graduating medical students?

Bob Earll, one of my AA heros, often would say when he got up to address the attendees at a conference : I wonder what I am going to say today?

After some preliminary remarks by the head of the hospital the time came for me to stand and deliver.

As I stood up (and I mean this) I thought what on earth am I going to say?

OK. Lights, camera, action.

I stood and silently looked out at the group, looking from front to back and from side to side. I have seen this technique used by other speakers addressing other groups than AA members.

And? Here are my opening words :

"I have bad news for you all. I feel that you expect me to have the answer to the issue of alcoholism and, sad to say, I don't have any answers. However, IF someone wants to stop drinking alcohol, we in Alcoholics Anonymous stand ready to assist them."

And? I spoke for two hours. 

I always encouraged attendees to interupt me during my talks because people forget their questions if they have to wait until the end of a talk. And their questions assist me to steer my comments in different directions as applicable.

And? I answered a lot of questions during and after my talk. But I could not answer the question of how anyone can successfully transmit to another the desire to go to any length to stop drinking alcohol. 

That desire MUST originate within the individual himself or herself.

Judging from the reception and enthusiasm of the questions and comments, and the fact the two hours flew past as if twenty minutes, it turned out to be a successful day for the group.

Still smiling about this day in my life.

SEP 7, 21 .. GUEST POST .. FROM A LONG TIME FRIEND ..

Meeting alone with my maker at early morning, at mid day, at late afternoon, and just after sunset right before the start of the Milky Way Galaxy Light Show; like a gazillion diamonds tossed out on Black Velvet, yet all moving as if guided by a master pilot!

Who am I to say there is no God?

AUG 26, 21 .. FOUR WORDS PRETTY MUCH SAY IT ALL

 You Must Want This.

When I was speaking in Russian Siberia, one of the most frequently asked questions I received was : What is the one most important thing on the road to sobriety?

Simple : You Must Want This.

Then comes the next question : How do you, how can you, attempt to cause someone (my wife, my husband, my son, my daughter, my mother, my father, my brother, my sister, my friend and the list goes on) with what appears to be a serious problem with alcohol want to stop drinking?

Simple : You can't make anyone want to stop drinking. It has to come from within each of us.

IF someone is ready to stop drinking for themselves, hopefully you can assist them on the road to recovery by sharing your own experience, strength and hope.

IF they don't want to stop, say the Serenity Prayer (accept what you cannot change) and move on to someone who wants sobriety.

Simple huh? 

Yes it really is simple.

Page 96 of the Big Book. 

Do not be discourged if your prospect does not repsond at once. Search out another alcoholic and try again. .. We find it a waste of time to keep chasing a man who cannot or will not work with you. .. To spend too much time on any one situation is to deny some other alcoholic an opportunity to live and be happy.

And? In the long run, our working with others keeps us sober. So keep reaching out to others.

It works. It really does.

JUL 26, 21 .. ARE YOU DRINKING MORE ALCOHOL THAN USUAL DURING QUARANTINE?

I am sure many (most) of you have seen and read the various questionnaires Are You An Alcoholic?

Recently I saw this 'Are You?' Questionnaire and just howled! 

A little Blast-From-The-Past (DEC 18, 14). Here is another short phrase that I like.

http://aaphotoshere.blogspot.com/search/label/AA%20Astronaut

When we read How It Works (Chapter 5, pages 58-60 in the A.A. Big Book) we read the following:

If you have decided you want what we have.

The problem is that 'what we have' changes from the day we walk into A.A. until after we have achieved some (call it) respectable 'dry time' of not drinking.

Confused? Let me explain.

When we walk into the rooms of A.A., what most of us we want to do is to stop drinking alcohol one day at a time.

After we achieve respectable 'dry time' (I will let you decide for yourself what this is for you, months, years, multiple decades?) and freedom from the desire and perhaps psysiological need to drink alcohol, then we no longer have as our primary purpose stopping drinking because we have stopped.

The story (A.A. TAUGHT HIM TO HANDLE SOBRIETY) on page 553 of the Big Book states : 

"It's no great trick to stop drinking; the trick is how to stay stopped. To do that, I had to come to A.A. to learn how to handle sobriety-- which is what I could not handle in the first place. That's why I drank."

Why Work The Steps.

The first reason we work the steps is to elicit a change in how we approach life. If we don't change we will drink again.

After working the first five steps we have hopefully begun to clear away the wreckage of the past. 

Now comes the time to change and Step 6 and 7 (character defects and shortcomings) come into our lives.

If we are living with (to name but a few character defects) hate, intolerance and anger, resentments towards others and the world itself, dishonesty, lying, selfishness, blaming others for our woes, contempt prior to investgation, impatience then we are more apt to pick up a drink to ease the tremendous stress of living with these character defects. 

Saying the 6th and 7th prayer on page 76 of the Big Book invites God into the equation to assist us with our desire to change.

BUT the bottom line to all of this is : One must want to change.

 Why Work The Steps.

The steps are a design for living. If followed they will enable us to change, to experience the spiritual awakening promised in the 12th step.

Once more take the questionaire.

Over and Out with a big smile.

JUN 28, 21 .. THE TRADITIONS AND ZOOM HYBRID MEETINGS ..

To say, or to even imply, that the Covid-19 virus, along with its many effects on all of us over the past year and a half, was less than enormous, would be pure folly. 

I, for one, had never ever heard of the term zoom meetings until March of 2020, when the meeting rooms doors in the Lompoc, California, fellowship were chained shut and the local members were told to go online and find zoom meetings. 

We now know that zoom meetings in the business world have been ongoing since Zoom Video Communications was founded by Eric Yuan on April 21, 2011, in San Jose, California.

What foresight our co-founder Bill W had when he wrote on page 17 of the A.A. Big Book the following sentence : We are people who normally would not mix.

What wisdom our co-founder Dr. Bob had when he stated (you will find this in the A.A. conference approved book, 'Dr. Bob and the Good Old Timers') : If you love everyone in A.A. you haven't been going to enough meetings.

HYBRID MEETINGS

Let's begin with this statement from Wikipedia : A hybrid event is a tradeshow, conference, seminar, workshop or other meeting that combines a 'live' in-person event with a 'virtual' online component.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_event

Now that we are seeing a vigorous return to 'live' in-person meetings, many members who live in remote areas with few (if any) 'live' in-person A.A. meetings, have been supported in their quest for sobriety through zoom online meetings. These members are fearing their zoom meetings are going to disappear and are very concerned.

Tradition 5 states : Each group has but one primary purpose -- to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers.

To this end, to continue to try to support the zoom meeting population, quite a few 'live' in-person meetings are striving to continue both their zoom online meetings and coupling them with the members sitting in the 'live' in-person meetings. 

Thus the term HYBRID MEETINGS has come to be a reality here in A.A.

Ah yes, we are people who normally would not mix and if you love everyone in A.A. you haven't been going to enough meetings.

I am personally involved in three HYBRID MEETINGS. 

One of them is going along smoothly with no ripples.

Two of them have had extremely contentious (causing or likely to cause an argument; controversial) interactions with a member who is stating that Hybrid Meetings are in violation of both Tradition 11 : Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio and films, and Tradition 12 - Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our Traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.

I am in the camp that believes this : Zoom meetings are NOT open to the public so Tradition 11 does not apply. To find and to enter a zoom meeting, you must first have a zoom meeting identification number and, in some cases, a password and then you must wait in a waiting room until the zoom meeting host allows you to enter the meeting.

Dr. Bob spoke at length about the fact (in his opinion) we do not have anonymity within A.A. If we don't know who one another is we can't help them outside of meetings should they experience a life crisis and need help from another member.

Finally we come to Tradition 4 : Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or A.A. as a whole. The A.A. conference approved book, The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, states on page 146, that every A.A. group can manage its affairs exactly as it pleases, except when A.A. as a whole is threatened and further that every group has the right to be wrong.

In each instance, the group, after discussing it with the member, simply quietly suggested to the the contentious member perhaps they might prefer to leave the meeting (which they chose to do), 

I pointed out that all across the nation A.A. groups are experimenting with Hybrid Meetings and this is not unique to us here.

Onward, ever onward! Change is the only constant. And? There are those who resist change.

MAY 29, 21 .. YUMA, ARIZONA .. SEVERAL MEETING LOCATIONS ..

 During my recent two months in the Southwest, I had the great pleasure of attending live-in-person A.A. Meetings. It had been almost one full year since I last attended live-in-person meetings and it was such a great pleasure to sit in meetings with others and not be looking at a computer screen 12-inches from my face as you do in a zoom meeting. 

In my last two posts, see the below links, I discussed meetings I attended in Phoenix, Benson, and Green Valley, Arizona.

http://aaphotoshere.blogspot.com/2021/03/mar-22-21-live-aa-meeting-my-1st-in-10.html#comment-form

http://aaphotoshere.blogspot.com/2021/04/apr-27-21-green-valley-arizona-alano.html

Now I will wrap-up my live and in-person meetings during my two months down in the Southwest.

YUMA, ARIZONA

While in Yuma, I focused my meeting attendance on meetings in only one location..

THE FOOTHILLS ALANO CLUB

In the final analysis, when you are on-the-road travelling, you only need one really satisfactory meeting location if and when you find the one that really works for you. The Foothills Alano Club is about 15-miles out of Yuma off Interstate 8 East in the Fortuna Foothills. You will see it if you click onto the below (very long) link. 

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Fortuna+Foothills,+AZ/Yuma,+AZ/@32.6894433,-114.587382,12z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m13!4m12!1m5!1m1!1s0x80d663edd49dab85:0x8a1dfaa90b53549c!2m2!1d-114.4118901!2d32.6578265!1m5!1m1!1s0x80d66287214dadd9:0xcfa93a07f59e4258!2m2!1d-114.6276916!2d32.6926512

Getting there took a little driving. But the meetings made the drive well worth the time.

The Foothills Alano Club is located in a small mobile home that the local members turned into a meeting location and Alano Club.

O.K. let's go inside of the club.

Looking down the tables after stepping inside of the club.

Looking back up toward the entryway to the club.

Looking out at the club's back yard.

A small venue, but well equipped for meetings.

Now we will go outside and look at the club's back yard. It is very large and just great for outdoor gatherings.

What 'sold' me on this venue over several others that I checked out? First and maybe foremost, due to Covid-19 considerations, masks were properly worn at all times inside of the club period. There was also a great mix of longtimers and new members. The meetings were extremely well run.

I went to one meeting in the club in Yuma proper. Masks were optional BUT social distancing was perfect. A large venue with only 6 in attendance but it was a low energy mid-afternoon meeting so it was one-and-done for this (really very nice) club.

So there you have a small taste of meetings in Yuma, Arizona.

APR 27, 21 .. GREEN VALLEY AND BENSON, ARIZONA .. THE ALANO CLUBS

 I remain down in the Southwestern part of the United States and continue to attend live, in-person, meetings. 

Green Valley is located due South of Tucson, Arizona, on Interstate Highway 19 (I-19). Click onto the below link to see its location. While you are looking at the below map, look to the right (to the East) on Interstate Highway 10 (I-10) and find Benson, Arizona. At the end of this post I will also show a few photos of the Benson Sobriety House as well.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Green+Valley,+AZ/@32.1092201,-111.535905,8.75z/data=!4m13!1m7!3m6!1s0x86d68193794d14bf:0x11419bf28db982c7!2sGreen+Valley,+AZ!3b1!8m2!3d31.8542511!4d-110.9937019!3m4!1s0x86d68193794d14bf:0x11419bf28db982c7!8m2!3d31.8542511!4d-110.9937019

With regard to following the current Covid-19 guidelines, for the most part the members wore masks and social distancing was, if not perfect, acceptable.

Over a period of several days I attended 5 meetings. Each were excellent because of long time members who have retired here or are Winter Snow Birds combined with a good population of newcomers and local members.

Below are photos of the Green Valley Alano Club, a very pleasant and well managed facility.

Now we will enter the Green Valley Alano Club.

Nice, very very nice.

The Benson, Arizona Sobriety House.

In March of 1988 (yes some 33 years ago) I was attending A.A. Meetings in each of the lower 48 States. One night I pulled into Benson and found a meeting. One man was sitting quietly at a table, all by himself, keeping the meeting room doors open as he read his Big Book. I will never forget how touched I was by his dedication to sobriety and how happy I was to have attended a meeting in Benson. 

While staying in Green Valley, I took a day-trip over to Benson, and with some help from a local community medical clinic, I found the Benson Sobriety House. I was 30 minutes early for a 12 noon meeting and visited with three long time members who showed me an enormous scrap book chronicling the history of the Sobriety House. I told them about my visit in 1988 and 'Big Jim' told me that the man I mentioned seeing was still alive and active in the local fellowship.

I did not do a complete photo shoot of the Sobriety House but did manage to shoot the below photos.

What a pleasure it was for me to re-visit the Benson Arizona Sobriety House after 33 years.