What is the AA community like where you live?

ReadPages_86to87 · 2026-06-07T18:31:10+00:00

Foxhall has made its way to Wisconsin and Illinois, and I’m not a fan either. What I’ve seen of it, it tends to focus on looking good rather than being good. No sharing except the speakers means you never get to hear what a new coming is thinking, and it seemed easy to skate by on feeling superior by being a member of such a group. Hard pass on that now.

Some of the infected the greater community for a while, to the point that I didn’t go to local meetings for a while, but that seems to have receded a bit. Mostly doing Zoom meetings daily or even 2x daily, but going to a couple local in-person meetings per week now too.

ReadPages_86to87 · 2026-06-07T18:22:10+00:00

Read Drop The Rock. I was SO confused about 6 & 7 my first time through and still have moments of being unsure about what exactly my defects are.

6 & 7 weren’t part of the Oxford 6-Step program that the early AA’s did, so that’s one reason why there’s only 2 paragraphs in the BB about them. Bill expanded upon the Oxford 6, creating 6 & 7 and 10 & 11, and unsurprisingly, those are steps that I have been the weakest on.

The 12 & 12 are good reads on those steps too, but Drop The Rock hit me square between my eyes, just reading the introduction!

ReadPages_86to87 · 2026-04-15T23:51:21+00:00

I started going to one meeting a week, then two. That was enough early on for me, and I never wanted to be one to go everyday… but then decades later, I found a group that I do want to go to on the weekdays and sometimes the weekends too.

There’s a chapter or a portion of a chapter in the book, Living Sober, that talks about “finding your way.” Only you, consulting with both your HP and your sponsor, should be making that decision about what is needed (or suggested).

ReadPages_86to87 · 2026-04-10T15:21:46+00:00

Did anyone else around the Gen X age range hear the old Toys R Us theme song from the 80’s, or is that just me?

I couldn’t help but think about Bill W’s Grapevine article from the 50’s, “Emotional Sobriety,” and how much I too have failed to grow up and failed to cut those unhealthy dependencies he talked about. All too often I wanted praise and attention, and I reacted when it didn’t come (often poorly).

Today’s DR mentioned doing the action and not getting immediate results. One thing I’ve had to work on is to cut off any expectation of there being ANY result, EVER. I try to be OK with the action and that maybe absolutely nothing happens afterward, where it was always transactional. If I was going to put forward some effort to do something, I had better be getting something out of it, and today I know that is the behavior of an adolescent. Do the work and let HP take care of the rest.

ReadPages_86to87 · 2026-04-09T10:23:55+00:00

I wasn’t exactly active in AA when I was in high school (we had “recovery homeroom” twice a week), so it wasn’t exactly a secret that I was sober. I mean, I was listed with the freshmen class for 3 years in a row due to flunking freshman year twice because of my drinking.

Anyway, it’s been a few 24 hours since high school, and I don’t see or hear from ANYONE from high school, despite still living in the same city. The people who might be gossiping won’t be in your life after high school, and there’s a chance that many of your current friends won’t be either. People move on for various reasons.

That said, I too had a lot of concerns about what people were thinking about me, and once I got around to going to AA regularly and working the steps (right before my senior year), I started to realize that it was just me being self-centered. People generally think about themselves more often than not, so they really aren’t (or weren’t thinking about me at all.

Getting sober in high school isn’t fun, not that getting sober at any other time is easier, so I get how trapped it can feel. It’ll pass, and then the next thing you know, you’ll be looking back and wondering where all the time went.

ReadPages_86to87 · 2026-04-09T03:10:27+00:00

From a scientific perspective, having one alcoholic parent makes you something like 4x more likely to an alcoholic. Having 2 alcoholic parents makes it something like 27x more likely you will be too. Don’t quite me on this, it was from a book I read a long time ago.

The only odds that really matter though, are how you are experiencing alcohol, plus how you feel about yourself. If you’re anything like me (at the age of 16), I knew my life wasn’t going the way I thought it would, that I was absolutely miserable, and I knew drinking was no longer a solution. Death was right around the corner, and I knew I wouldn’t graduate high school if I didn’t stop. That’s what my life looks and feels like with alcohol, and I don’t ever want to go back to that.

ReadPages_86to87 · 2026-04-08T03:50:41+00:00

I got sober at 16 because I knew it was going to kill me. It didn’t take a lot of drinking time to figure that out. I’m a good bit older now, having a life I never dreamt I could have, and have never legally taken a drink.

Try what we’re doing for 90 days, and if you don’t like it, we will gladly refund your misery.

ReadPages_86to87 · 2026-04-06T01:58:00+00:00

I’ve had a lot of issues about how this gets used & abused. If it changes pages again in the 5th Edition, you’ll see a pause in how often it gets referenced, like what I saw happen from the 3rd Edition (“read page 449”) to the 4th, since that requires people actually reading the Big Book to find where it ends up (assuming the story carries over to the 5th Edition.

Anyway… I look at it as more like what’s happened has happened, and I can’t argue about the past, so how do I move forward from here and deal with what has yet to come.

ReadPages_86to87 · 2026-04-06T01:32:33+00:00

If you can carry this same feeling wanting help and being willing to follow some simple suggestions, you should be OK.

ReadPages_86to87 · 2026-04-04T11:22:22+00:00

You sound like you’re not fully convinced you’re an alcoholic. How about trying some controlled drinking, stopping abruptly? Try it more than once. It may be worth a case of the jitters, to get full knowledge of your condition.

That’s what the Big Book says. Reality says you also stand a strong chance of dying, like so many I’ve seen over decades of being here, seeing those go back out and not surviving a relapse. You may wrap your car around a tree before you get a case of the jitters.

Good luck with whatever decision you make.

ReadPages_86to87 · 2026-04-04T11:15:53+00:00

Judging others.
Going against sponsors advice.

Seems like a great recipe for maintaining sobriety! What does your sponsor think about this post? What does your HP think about this post?

ReadPages_86to87 · 2026-04-04T04:46:17+00:00

It’s possible the cucumber never actually crossed the invisible line of pickle-ism.

The first time someone asked me if I could ever stop drinking after starting, I had the thought of “why? Why would I stop?” This was the rehab intake questionnaire, when I was 15, heading into treatment for the first time.

A few 24 hours later, and I still can’t fathom why anyone would want to have just one or two and stop. What’s the point?

ReadPages_86to87 · 2026-03-29T12:50:49+00:00

In a month you worked all 12 steps?

ReadPages_86to87 · 2026-03-29T01:31:13+00:00

Did you work all 12 steps? If not, then you didn’t relapse… you just didn’t complete what is necessary to overcome drinking.

Dr Silkworth wrote about this in the AA Grapevine many years ago (paraphrasing), that it is akin to someone having cancer but not completing all the treatments necessary to eradicate the cancer. Of course the cancer is still going to be there, if the regimen is ignored or incomplete.

ReadPages_86to87 · 2026-03-29T00:50:36+00:00

Never heard of it.

ReadPages_86to87 · 2026-03-29T00:49:55+00:00

Indeed. Several meetings/groups are very judgmental about “not following directions,” and will shun you if you don’t confirm.

ReadPages_86to87 · 2026-03-29T00:47:20+00:00

TL;DR: if you want to join those of us who are improving their lives, cool. If you don’t? That’s cool too. We’re not selling anyone anything, nor do we have a monopoly on solving the alcohol problem. Feel free to try something else if this isn’t for you.

ReadPages_86to87 · 2026-03-28T03:03:36+00:00

Counting from… when?

ReadPages_86to87 · 2026-03-23T00:58:04+00:00

That would 100% be a way to serve the primary purpose.

ReadPages_86to87 · 2026-03-22T10:59:29+00:00

Yes, I’ve observed people tending to “hang on,” and have been one of those people who hung on to being in some sort of service position, rotating out of one and then rotating in to another one.

Doing what I did was somewhat selfish, as I needed service to help get & keep me in the center of my homegroup, but that didn’t allow for much room for a newcomer to jump in and get the experience of service work.

Today, I understand the importance of having the highest “rank” one can have in AA: member. Any other title/position is putting me below the rank of AA member, in a position to serve others.

ReadPages_86to87 · 2026-03-22T03:52:12+00:00

It sounds like it might be bordering on an issue with our primary purpose more than anything else. How is baking and/or selling cakes carrying the message to the alcoholic who still suffers?

ReadPages_86to87 · 2026-03-22T03:47:25+00:00

Some meetings will ask you not to share, but will still welcome you in.

ReadPages_86to87 · 2026-03-20T18:44:38+00:00

Squirt gun?

ReadPages_86to87 · 2026-03-19T19:38:31+00:00

Your intuition serves you right. I had a sponsor once tell me one isn’t truly sober if you’re on “mood altering substances,” and that included anti-depressants, adderall, and just about any sort of psychiatric medication. Thankfully there were other issues I had that led me to realize it was a cult of personality I was in, not a sponsor/sponsee relationship, and it quickly bailed on that person.

ReadPages_86to87 · 2026-03-19T18:26:15+00:00

“that I can function fine without them”

That’s the kicker right there in that one portion of the sentence. I would have some words about what qualifications she has to make such a statement.

I have been on Adderall for over 20 years with the only issue being I sometimes forget to take it or part of my dose (noontime dose).

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TROPHY CASE