I saw the message on our WhatsApp group chat from one of our friends

who now lives in North Asia, that a certain rock star was coming to town

because his band was touring Asia and would any of us be interested in

taking him to meetings while he was here? I was quick to respond yes, I

could. Our friend in North Asia made a WhatsApp group between the three

of us and we got introduced that way.

The last time I saw this band play was over thirty years ago when they

were first starting out. They played my hometown local roller rink and

being the young trendsetter that I thought I was at the time, I went to see

that was new. After the concert we drank beer with the band by the

dumpster behind the rear exit of the roller rink and helped them score drugs.

For my 9th grade (15 year old) school picture I wore their concert shirt as a

symbol of my rebelliousness; skull, cross-bones, chains, blood dripping

from everything – really heavy metal.

We made arrangements to meet up at the hotel the band was staying at to

hit up a noon meeting since they were not playing until the following night,

so the whole day was mostly free for him. When I got to the hotel, some

of the band’s fans were hanging around the lobby; autograph seekers, I

assumed (or wait – do people even ask for autographs anymore?) When

he got to the lobby we met and shook hands and right away, autograph

seekers (yes, I guess they do still ask for autographs) surrounded him. He

was gracious and signed everything and thanked his fans. “We-fie” takers

were there too. I even took some snaps for some fans.

Once in the taxi we headed straight for the meeting location and shared

some small talk. He mentioned the last time the band was here in town, and

I told him about the time I saw them at the roller rink in my

hometown over 30 years ago. I debated whether or not  showing him

the picture of me wearing the band’s concert shirt for my school

photo would make me seem too much of a fan-boy, then went

ahead and did so, but it did not seem to faze him – I think he was

used to it. He talked about “the road” and how hard it is in some

cities to find meetings. I said maybe he could listen to some speaker

tapes on Spotify while on the road when he couldn’t hit a meeting.

He was surprised to know that you could find speaker tapes on there.

We got to the meeting one minute late. An old-timer gave us the

glare that those old-timers do. Nobody seemed to recognize him until

he shared, but even then everyone was cool and did not cross any

While dropping him off at his hotel and saying goodbye, I mentioned

that there is a really good meeting not far from his hotel but it is at

7:30 in the morning. I almost dared not mentioning it as we have all

heard of the rock star lifestyle and I figured he’d still be asleep. Turns

out he was up for it, and we met up again for coffee, a meeting, and

I learned a big lesson from this experience; here was a guy who had

been sober a while, was going on a “business trip” (not much

different from those that the pioneers of AA went on in the early days

of our fellowship) and made the effort to get connected with

someone in advance. He put his sobriety first, went to meetings,

shared from his experience, did not take himself too seriously, and