Category Archives: 2025 Meeting Topics

I picked this week’s topic from “As Bill Sees It” – pg. 15, unit 25

“How many of us would presume to declare, “Well, I’m sober and I’m happy. What more can I want, or do? I’m fine the way I am.” We know that the price of such self-satisfaction is an inevitable backslide, punctuated at some point by a very rude awakening. We have to grow or else deteriorate. For us, the status quo can only be for today, never for tomorrow. Change we must; we cannot stand still.” – Grapevine, February 1959.

I chose this particular passage for a bajillion reasons. I’m an athlete; standing still makes me bajiggity! More importantly, I’m an alcoholic and addict; if I stagnate on my Program and recovery, I will relapse yet again. For 939 days, I have been sober – not a drop of wine/booze/beer or a Xanax.

Prior to these 939 days, I had convinced myself that I was “recovered”. WTAF was I thinking? I was still popping Xanax like Tic Tacs because I had been prescribed them for severe anxiety. I didn’t have severe anciety – I’m an addict, FFS!! I would have told a doctor anything to get the drugs my disease told me I needed! I would have tried to sell a glass of water to a drowning man for a single sip of wine.

Today, I categorically know that in no way, shape, or form can I EVER get near alcohol or certain drugs again. I even hesitate to take a dang Advil now – not a brag, just a fact. This is the change I create for myself every dang day. The knowledge that I cannot change how my brain is wired; I can change my actions and my dedication to my recovery. I give credit to my Sponsor, my recovery, my friends in the Program, my sisters, my son. On some days, I even give credit to myself. I am my own harshest critic; I still struggle with giving myself the grace I so freely give others. Thoughts are the hardest (for me) to change.

This week’s topic is step 2:
“Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.”

This is a special time for me, today is my 10th sobriety anniversary! I am proud of myself for making it to this milestone. I’ve taken the journey with many of you as I joined GROW shortly after I became sober. So grateful to be here and be of service to GROW. On to my share…

To repair my broken life, the definition of which varied depending on the decade, I spent years reading self help books and attending therapy sessions starting at age 14. These tools often helped temporarily, but I always found myself returning into a cycle of the same character defects over and over again. It went something like this: emotional pain of some kind hits me (that’s a whole other topic!), I reached for the nearest ‘fix’ (food, alcohol, drugs, men) until I became distracted enough that the original pain dissipated or went away entirely. From the outside looking in I appeared functional, but by the time I turned 55 years old I had become a slave to the fix of the day, which was primarily alcohol. And for this girl, the ‘side effects’ of alcohol addiction are not pretty! I knew that I needed more than books and therapy if I was ever going to be free.

Enter the 12 step program of AA. As I listened to everyone sharing in the first couple of months of meetings, I observed how faith in a higher power was the key for so many people to maintain sobriety. This was the first true venture into the world of faith for me, and I didn’t know how to tap into this ‘higher power’. But I had enough trust in these (mostly) happy people sitting in the rooms to keep an open mind and heart. I decided if they can live a sober life after a lifetime of drinking, if they can ‘come to believe’, well so can I.

For me, faith in God was the right solution. I sensed it was the ONLY path towards letting go of my controlling nature. Nothing else had worked in the long term. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t until I began reading the A.A. literature and listening at meetings that I realized my need to control was one of my most challenging defects.

Step 2 always gives me hope to break free from my destructive patterns of behavior. It gives me hope for improved relationships with my spouse, family, friends, and life in general. This amazing step is also simpler than anything else I have tried to feel sane and serene. When I’m greatly troubled, I can have a conversation with God and give Him my woes, He is there for me.

Even when life doesn’t seem to be going ‘my way’, I know that I can turn to God instead of alcohol. This is believing in a power greater than myself that can restore me to sanity.

Please share with us about your step 2 experience, strength and hope.

Topic for the week: Remembering Your Last Drunk.

For this week’s meeting, I am sharing an excerpt from the book Living Sober which reads:

A friend who offers us a drink usually means simply that one sociable glass or two. But if we are careful to recall the full suffering of our last drinking episode, we are not deceived by our own long-ago notion of “a drink.” The blunt, physiological truth for us, as of today, is that a drink pretty surely means a drunk sooner or later, and that spells trouble.

Drinking for us no longer means music and gay laughter and flirtations. It means sickness and sorrow.

One A.A. member puts it this way: “I know now that stopping in for a drink will never again be–for me–simply killing a few minutes and leaving a buck on the bar. In exchange for that drink, what I would plunk down is my bank account, my family, our home, our car, my job, my sanity, and probably my life. It’s too big a price, too big a risk.”

He remembers his last drunk, not his first drink.

Hi I’m Rachel, and I’m an alcoholic. This past Monday, January 20th, I celebrated 10 years of sobriety, a great milestone for me. I couldn’t help but reflect on my last drunk 10 years ago. It had all the typical parts: I swore I would only have 1 drink, then no more than 2, and before I know it I’m blacked out and driving home. The next day, sitting at work with a horrible hangover, my husband mad at me, I decided I cannot keep living like this. I had already gotten sober once and then went back to drinking because I thought I could control it. But I just had too much to lose at that point, and I knew if I kept going like that, something very bad would happen. I continue to remember that last drunk because it reminds me every day that, no matter how much I think it, I can never just have 1 or 2 drinks. My worst day sober is still far better than my best day drunk.

I’d love to hear about your last drunk and how remembering it keeps you sober today!

Thanks for letting me chair and share!

Rachel S.

Topic for the week: Spiritual Experience / Contempt Prior to Investigation

Today I would like to share an excerpt with you from Appendix II of the Big Book “Spiritual Experience”, the last 3 paragraphs read:

     Most emphatically we wish to say that any alcoholic capable of honestly facing his problems in the light of our experience can recover, provided he does not close his mind to all spiritual concepts. He can only be defeated by an attitude of intolerance or belligerent denial.

     We find that no one need have difficulty with the spirituality of the program. *Willingness, honesty and open mindedness are the essentials of recovery. But these are indispensable.*

     “There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance–that principle is contempt prior to investigation.” – Herbert Spencer

My Share:

Hi again, I’m an alcoholic named Emily.

I have a history of over-complicating even the simplest of things. While I was raised to believe in God and didn’t have any major issues with still believing in God, I got pretty preoccupied with *exactly how* was this God gonna restore me to sanity? Hmmm? And why hadn’t He already done it since I had never stopped believing? Hmmm?

And why did some of my friends not make it over to the other side with me? And why was my life still such a mess? And why did he bring this person into my life if all they were going to do was cause destruction? And why would I have to keep going to meetings for the rest of my life? And why would I have to apologize to everyone and humiliate myself publicly like these steps suggested? And why would I have to tell all my secrets to someone in the group and on and on and on.

And this contempt prior to investigation kept me out of AA for 8 long years of dry drunk stark raving sobriety. By the time I got to AA, I was a lunatic and also finally willing to admit that my way wasn’t working. It took a little getting used to, but I finally started allowing myself to be teachable by God and by you in the program.

The healing I have experienced is unlike anything else I have ever experienced in my life. Many wounds, I did not think could be healed, others I didn’t think I could allow to be healed as they were self-inflicted. The truth at the end of the day? I’m just a garden variety alcoholic, not that sick and not that special, and when I get out of my own way and develop the willingness to follow a few suggestions and remain open minded and honest, the result is a vast spiritual experience and awakening. Sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, but it always comes if I work for it.

What does this reading bring up for you and your journey with recovery and spirituality? I would love to hear from everyone their experience, strength and hope on this. I learn so much from each and every one of you.

Step One – “We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable”

I remember taking my first Step One after I got out of a 30 day rehab; I was bound and determined to stay sober. I failed egregiously less than 18 months later. This time, I am 904 days free from alcohol and Xanax. I have yet to complete my Step work with my Sponsor, but we will do so. I now have the clarity that being free from BOTH alcohol and Xanax has given me. Are my days trouble free – not all of them, no. But now, thankfully, I have the support I was unwilling to ask for in my past. I am far from perfect; I am more than willing to admit that fact! I am human, a Mama, a friend, a family member, an athlete, a productive member of society, and SOBER!