“My A¨ FoƛnƊơƴiƕn”

My AA Foundation, believe it or not, was when I stepped foot into my first home group Sunrise Sunday 9:30am morning meeting. I walked in the room and there stood Donald J., the man that gave me my 1st AA Resentment. Donald was a grade ahead of me in High School. I never liked him then or now but we practice principles before personalities . Some people just rub you the wrong way.

me from being a bum. I was truly homeless. I’d lost everything.

When I got back home after the meeting I asked my Dad, (they were divorced when I was 9), was Mom ever called Pennies? Dad said describe this man, so I did. Oh that’s little Joe. It turned out that Joe knew my Mother and father when they were dating. I was just a sparkle in my Father’s eye. Why he called my Mom Pennies was because they always played a card game with tokens but my mom used shiny new copper pennies instead of the dull red plastic tokens.

He sees me entering the Meeting Room, he yells at the top of his lungs;

“There he is. Mr. Top Shelf. We’ve been waiting for you”. I yelled back, Donald what in the hell are talking about? (I drank and loved Thunderbird, that delicious cheap ass sweet tasting wine.) Of course, me as a newcomer, I was scared to death. I was so embarrassed and everyone was laughing, I thought, at me.

What an AA foundation the Roosevelt We Care group was for me. People I went to highschool with, a person who knew my parents when they were dating. Reaching my bottom I meet the worst person I ever drank with who was now the Group Secretary. My whole life before AA and beginning my AA journey was all in this one room. I’m so grateful for my strong foundation, for the Love & Fellowship I found in my first home group.,

There was Glascove, a nasty drunk who wore very thick milk bottle eye glasses. He had a slobbering juicy mouth & wet thick lips. I pitched in money with these ‘bums’ to buy that first bottle of liquor when the Liquor store opened up at 9am – not one minute early. That’s what the homeless were called back in those days. I drank with this guy many times. Then one day Glascove just disappeared. In my hometown, Freeport, Long Island, when you weren’t seen for a while that meant you had either died or were in Hollywood making pictures. (A nice way to say you were in jail.) Here, 5 years later, Glascove was 5 years sober and the Group Secretary for Roosevelt We Care, my first home group.

~Tony T, April 4, 1979

A little old man came over to me later and asked me was my Mother’s nickname Pennies? I said no, it was Tiny or Teeny. My Dad, RIP, moved me into his house, keeping