Mar. 7: My First A.A. Meeting

Well, Monday night I attended my first AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) meeting. I’ve been intending to go for a while, but didn’t have an urgent need. “Hello, my name is Jim, and I’m…”

What am I, exactly? I have some areas of weakness, but my Achilles’ Heel is not alcohol. I am a recovering legalistic Christian—on a journey to become an authentic Christ-follower. My friend Steve was speaking at the AA meeting and invited me to go along. We started off with a portion of The Serenity Prayer by Reinhold Niebuhr: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.”

It was a lot like church but without the singing or the typical pretentiousness—it was honest in a way that church meetings usually aren’t. I learned that, “Alcoholics Anonymous® is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking… Their primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety.”

They call the group a “fellowship” and have “The Big Book” of AA. It possessed some things most churches could use a little more of—a spirit of equality and acceptance, a genuine atmosphere of concern and accountability, a clear and unifying purpose, and a depth of courage and honesty too rarely encountered in most circles.

The Twelve Steps to recovery for those involved in the process are:
1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs. (Copyright © A.A. World Services, Inc., Rev.5/9/02)

I couldn’t help wondering what our churches would look like if we pursued these steps to wholeness and transparent relationship with the same tenacity I witnessed there. We concluded the meeting, holding hands in a big circle, and saying The Lord’s Prayer together:

“Our Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.”

Yeah, it was a lot like what church should be, but I still need the singing.

~ Father, thank you for pursuing us in order to rescue us, no matter what our weakness. Give us the courage and honesty needed to find the healing You desire for us all. Amen.