In no particular order:

Love Fate God Luck Bill W Cheap brandy Lessons learned from childhood Damian Hall Sharing Listening The steps My family Meetings Bus rides in the dark Connection A diagnosis Opening up Letting go Reflections Travelers from other places Just for Today Prayer

Standing in a storm and looking up to the blue sky. Sitting in Church and feeling like the worst sinner. Letting go of hate that was killing me. Falling to my knees, when I had everything and nothing. The darkness had to take me; so I could stand up to face the world. Look it in the eye and say I’m here, I’m you and you are me. This lifeboat has room, sit with me. Share your journey, and I’ll tell you mine. Hold my hand and say “it’s fine.” We’ve got some time. One day at a time.

stranger, to ask if he could come over. Bill got Bob’s telephone number from a lady friend who knew a drunk who lived in Akron. To me, this was truly a divine intervention. And to this day, a simple telephone call to another recovered AA member has saved many members the pain from picking up that 1st drink. They stayed sober after the phone call. 12 Step work is still an important tool in our AA program.

This is an interesting Subject. May I quote the following;

We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection. Our description of the alcoholic, the chapter to the agnostic, and our personal adventures before and after make clear three pertinent ideas: … (b) That probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism.

To answer the question ‘WHAT SAVED YOU?’ – GOD COULD AND WOULD IF HE WAS SOUGHT is my answer.

As I understand, WE can do what I can’t do alone. Alcoholics Anonymous was started by Bill Wilson & Dr. Bob Smith who got together in Akron, Ohio. Bob sat in Bill’s kitchen talking about ‘drinking booze’, not Alcohol. I never drank alcohol. I drank & bought Liquor. They talked about drinking Booze all night and that morning Bill & Bob discovered they did not get the urge to drink during their whole time spent together talking about drinking. Total Strangers. These two gentlemen discovered a ‘thing’ that has plagued man since grapes were first crushed. (Not to mention the ale ancient Egyptians drank that probably caused ‘drunkenness’ there also). But AA does not wish to engage in any controversy…. so I am getting back to the subject and staying focused … ‘THEY’, Bill & Bob, SAVED ME AND MILLIONS MORE. This Devine Meeting of these two-men meetings in Akron, Ohio, later to be known as Alcoholics Anonymous, or AA.

God, whom I choose to call my Higher Power, has been in my whole life. Out of rehab on a Wednesday looking at a Nassau County AA Meeting Guide. I took a cab across town to my 1st AA meeting that evening. All the tables were covered with white paper and streamers hung from the ceilings. I was scared to death. It looked like a Party was going on. A party & drinking were one of the same. I ended up in the kitchen. I asked this Lady, where was the AA Meeting? She said, this was it – “Grab a cup of coffee and go sit down”. It was an Anniversary meeting.

The main speaker, Lavern W., was wonderful. At Rehab they told us if we like the speaker tell them at the end of the meeting. These simple suggestions told in AA changed my life beginning from that moment. During the coffee break, I went up to this guy – excuse me Sir, I liked your share, my name is Tony and this is my first meeting. I’d just got out of rehab that afternoon and I turned to run back to my seat in the rear of the room. He put his arm around me and introduced me to everyone in that room. I could have killed him. He asked me where did I live,

Bill’s decision that evening in that Akron Hotel was so fateful. If he turned right he would go to sit on a bar stool, but he chose to walk left to the lobby phone booth to make a telephone call to Bob, a

I told him in Freeport and he said ‘good, I do too, I’ll drive you home’. Now he knew where I lived. What are you doing tomorrow? I said nothing. Good, be ready at 7pm, I’ll take you to a meeting. He picked me up at 7pm on the dot and this went on for several days. Now it was Friday evening and back home from another meeting he asked what I do on a Saturday? Nothing, I said. I worked in the City and was off on the weekends and Lavern said good, go to Roosevelt WE CARE AA at 10:30 for the morning meeting in the next town over. I did. That man with 8 years of Sobriety became my Sponsor & Roosevelt WE CARE became my first Home Group which I still attend via Zoom today. Lavern did not ‘SAVE’ me. We don’t ‘SAVE’ FOLKS IN AA. WE ‘SHARED’ with each other. What Lavern did was to share his experience, strength and hope with me. He carried the Message of AA as his sponsor, Chad, carried it to him and Chad’s sponsor, Cosgrove, carried the AA message to Chad. We don’t drink, we go to meetings, we don’t drink between meetings, we call our sponsor and we do service and we reach out to the newcomers like Lavern reached out to me at my 1st meeting,

though he was a total stranger to me at the time. We read the Big Book, did the Steps and practiced these Steps & Principals in all our affairs. This is a very simple program for very complicated people. The elevator to Sobriety is out-of-order. Please, please use the steps.

My Higher Power placed that man at my 1st AA meeting to guide me in this program. We will intuitively know God can do for us what we can not do for ourselves. On September 7th, 2021, I was one of Lavern’s 3 speakers celebrating his 50th year of AA Sobriety at his Anniversary Zoom meeting in Brooklyn, NY.

I live in San Francisco, CA. I showed up, speaking at Lavern’s anniversary meeting where my AA life began in Freeport, NY, 42 years prior, just out of rehab. What a Honor to speak at his anniversary, what a Gift. AA works, if you work it. If it works, don’t fix it. You change, you don’t change AA.