Ugh! The weekend!

[Rhiannon12866]

9. Same here.

I knew nothing about AA when I started, but I'd tried everything else. So my friend (who is also a DU member now) has family members in AA, so she took me to my first meeting - and suggested a second one which turned out to be a women's meeting - and that's where I met the wonderful woman who reached out to me and became my sponsor. And, as you said, the thing that really worked for me was that I met friends there - and I realized I wasn't alone.

And I'm not religious, either, though I grew up in the Church - and at one of my first meetings there was a guy who seemed to know all about the literature (I bought all the books, treated it like I was back at school) started highlighting passages in my Big Book. And I said to him "I'm not religious" and he answered "Are you open minded?" Well, I did have "the gift of desperation" and that's what worked for me.

That was in 2008 and it did take me awhile, but I continued going to the meetings that my sponsor suggested (or took me to), meeting people and learning. And I've met all sorts of people in AA, some religious, many who are not, but I've always remembered that early advice and know now that everyone's different, but the program can work for any of us no matter what beliefs we have as long as we stick with it and don't drink.

Since then, I've become a long-time GSR for a beginner's group - and when that shut down due to Covid (it was at a treatment center where there are residents), I have friends who have recommended different groups and I step up when asked, was secretary at the women's group (which also shut down *sigh*) and my favorite "service," ordering coins for beginners and long-timers alike. I'm also responsible for a new group that started just a year ago, we get beginners there, too.

I had no idea what AA was like, but in these parts, it's a real community, so I reach out when I can and just "keep coming back." I still may not be religious, but I am open minded and AA has worked for me. And my sobriety date is tomorrow - I will have 13 years. And I consider myself very lucky that I found AA - and "sober support" from more people that I can count - so I will continue to "pay it forward" whenever I can as others did for me.