Alcoholics Anonymous All South Bay Central Office Newsletter Fall Issue 2020 1411 Marcelina Ave, Torrance CA 90501 | Email: [email protected] | Phone: (310) 618-1180 The Speakeasy is published by the All South Bay Central Office of Alcoholics Anonymous. Opinions expressed are those of the writers/ contributors and not of Alcoholics Anonymous as a whole or of Central Office. We welcome and need your input, opinions, humor and comments. Send them today. Pain is Pain, We Stay Sober NO MATTER WHAT
How did I get to California? I lost my job, detoxed myself in my house for three days can label it anything you want. It is still just not from alcoholism but as the result of a and it was horrible. I had post-acute with- an excuse if you are going to drink, you are mass reduction in force. So, I was looking for drawal seizures. At the time, I did not know going to drink. There is never a reason. So, jobs and I needed to get to warm weather that you could die from alcohol withdrawal we stay sober no matter what. No matter due to my health issues. I was not looking at but after three days I got to a meeting and what life gives me, I have realized that that is nor was I interested in California, but an that was the beginning of my journey. The God’s will for me that day and I am not alone anonymous individual submitted my resume very next day/month after I got sober was in it. If I am suffering today, it is really by for a job, and I was invited for an interview. I November, Gratitude Month. And I had noth- choice. If I’m in pain today and if I’m working got the job and I ended up coming here. It ing to be grateful for at one day sober. That the program then that pain will be managea- was weird at first and I thought ‘I don’t know whole month, people in the program repeat- ble, I will be okay, and I will get through it if I’m going to be able to stay sober here be- ed, ‘I’m grateful for this,’ ‘I’m grateful for because it’s just today. cause it was so different (from Chicago).’ that!’ I was like: ‘Screw you people!’ But I I’ve got some things coming up that I could One time, I remember pulling onto the side found out that that gratitude was really the worry about: I’m getting a bone marrow of the road to call my godfather, crying out in key. If I can just stay in gratitude no matter biopsy where they’re going to be drilling my the pain, uncertain about my future, not sure what my life looks like, no matter how much hip. But I’m not there yet. I don’t have any if I could stay sober through the transition. chaos is going on—there is always some- business in tomorrow. That’s what keeps me But I stayed sober through that. I stayed so- thing to be grateful for, always. AA taught me sober. Those are those “no matter whats.” If I ber though somebody stealing all my money to look at what I have, not at what I don’t, stay in today it doesn’t matter what’s going after getting a hold of my bank account in- and to thank God for even the things He re- on. It’s just living in that moment— formation. Then I found out that the room- moves. When I was walking up the Steps, the continuing to work with my girls, continuing mate I was staying with never paid the rent only thing I could see is the Step in front of to stay in prayer. Before COVID-19, I was and we were getting evicted, so I lived in my me, but when I turned around on the Steps unable to get out to meetings anymore be- car with my two cats for three days. And I and sat down, I saw how far I’d come. When I cause my white blood cell count was so low stayed sober through that. Then I tried to sat on the Steps and I looked back at every- that even a slight cold could kill me. I ended move into a sober living home while I tried thing God had removed, it is then that I saw up in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). Even to find a place and I found out they were the blessings in them. When I go through when I was hospitalized I met with a smoking pot and doing all sorts of weird hard times and I have those hopeless mo- sponsee and opened the Big Book, because things. I left after one day… stayed sober ments, I sit there and I realize all the wonder that is what works. I still go to six meetings a through that. We can do it! And that is the that has come though every moment of pain, week, but I had to quit going to physical key— “we.” I cannot do it, but “we” can do it, every loss, anything that I considered ‘bad’ meetings even before Zoom meetings. together. I can do it with God and with the in the past. There is no bad or good, there is fellowship. I cannot do it on my own. So that no right or wrong when I review the record. (Continued on page 5) is how I ended up in California. God used me They are all blessings in disguise, and I may in the way that He saw fit and I reached the or may not be revealed them. But I can look highest position a woman has ever reached back and know that the blessings will be INSIDE THIS ISSUE at my job. It was amazing! Just the result of revealed, and it gives me hope and it keeps this program. Not only did I apply the Tradi- me going. Steps, Traditions & Concepts 2 tions, but I also applied the Twelve Concepts There are good days and bad days, but I am Bill Wilson: On False Pride & Anger 3 to my management style. And as a result of okay. I start my day just with God and with doing that, I just shot up the ladder. To this that inner peace, the rest of the aches and A Newcomer Shares 4 day, I have had the fastest rise in that com- pains just kind of take care of themselves. pany as a female. It was pretty cool, how God Mine is called, CANCER. For some people its Job/Job, Wife/Wife, COVID/COVID 5 used me. divorce, loss of a job, relationship problems, I got sober in Chicago. My sobriety date is low self-esteem, it does not matter—pain is ASBCO Bulletin Board 6 October 31, 2007. I did not go to rehab. I pain. It is what we do with it, because you
Step, Tradition & Concept All South Bay Central Office 1411 Marcelina Ave Step Torrance, CA 90501 “Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.” Open 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., M-F 9 a.m.—7 p.m. Sat & Sun Tradition Web site: www.southbayaa.org “Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other Email: [email protected] Phone: (310) 618-1180 4 groups or A.A. as a whole.” Concept “At all responsible levels, we ought to maintain a traditional ‘Right of Board of Directors Participation,’ allowing a voting representation in reasonable 4th Tuesday of the month 6:30 p.m. proportion to the responsibility that each must discharge.” Currently meeting via ZOOM Meeting ID: 949 9677 6629 Password: 254568 Phone: (310) 618-1180 Step “Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.” Intergroup 4th Tuesday of the month Tradition 7:30 p.m.
“Each group has but one primary purpose—to carry its message to the Currently meeting via ZOOM 5 alcoholic who still suffers.” Meeting ID: 949 9677 6629 Password: 254568 Concept Phone: (310) 618-1180 “Throughout our structure, a traditional, a traditional ‘Right of Appeal’ ought to prevail, so that minority opinion will be heard and personal grievance receive careful consideration.” District 1 2nd Tuesday of the month 7:30 p.m.
Currently meeting via ZOOM Step Meeting ID: 929 014 8764 “Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.” Password: panel70 (all lowercase) Phone: (310) 740-2963 Tradition “An A.A. group ought never endorse, finance or lend the A.A. name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, District 3 property and prestige divert us from our primary purpose.” 2nd Tuesday of the month 6 7:30 p.m. Concept “The Conference recognizes that the chief initiative and active responsi- District 3 participants are currently being invited to attend District 1 bility in most world service matters should be exercised by the trustee Meetings members of the Conference acting as the General Service Board.” Phone: (310) 971-8847
Hospitals &Institutions 3rd Tuesday of the month “The mental twists that led up to my drinking began 7:00 p.m.
many years before I ever took a drink for I am one of Currently meeting via ZOOM Meeting ID: 845 7790 5484 those whose history proves conclusively that my drinking Password: service was a ‘symptom of a deeper trouble’… I stand convinced Phone: (310) 707-5606 that my emotional illness has been present from my
earliest recollection. I never did react normally to any The General Service Office emotional situation.” P.O. Box 459 Grand Central Station, NY 10163 —Freedom From Bondage, Alcoholics Anonymous Phone: (212) 870-3400
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Bill Wilson: On False Pride and Anger
Excerpt from Chapter III: Four O’Clock Sunday Afternoon as printed in the 1957 edition of Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age. The words of Bill Wilson at the close of the St. have had great problems, but they have al- Louis Convention and the celebration of 20 years of AA. ways been resolved. Never has a grave issue ...Let us not suppose, just because A.A. as a The whole modern world is cut across and scarred the face of this far- whole has never had a grievous problem, flung fellowship. But again, this is no earned that it never can have one. If such a difficulty in fact coming apart as virtue of ours. Too many of us in our drink- ever comes, I feel sure that it will center never before... because men ing days have suffered the terrible penalties about false pride and anger, the two most of proud and angry pursuits to forget them destructive defects that we alcoholics have. blindly pursue wealth, now. These very pains have been the begin- ...Then, too, it would be a product of false fame, and personal power ning of whatever wisdom we have since in- pride to believe that Alcoholics Anonymous corporated in A.A.’s Twelve Traditions. is a cure-all, even for alcoholism. Here we regardless of the Hence, I feel confident that these forces of must remember our debt to the men of med- consequences to anyone, destruction will never rule among us. We are icine. Here we must be friendly and, above prepared to pay the price of peace. We will all, open-minded toward every new develop- even to themselves. make every personal sacrifice necessary to ment in the medical and psychiatric art that insure the unity of Alcoholics Anonymous. promises to be helpful to sick people. We We will do this because we have learned to should always be friendly to those in the will be any opposition to us, and the wider love God and one another. fields of alcoholic research, rehabilitation, will be the circle in which our fellowship will As these meetings began on a theme of and education. We should endorse none es- be likely to enjoy the confidence and respect gratitude, so should they end. We give pecially but hold ourselves in readiness to co of men. thanks to our Heavenly Father who, through -operate so far as we can with them all. Let Having examined the perils of pride, let’s so many friends and through so many means us constantly remind ourselves that the ex- look briefly now at how anger, even so-called and channels, has allowed us to construct perts in religion are clergymen; that the righteous indignation, could harm us. Within this wonderful edifice of the Spirit in which practice of medicine is for physicians; and A.A., I suppose, we shall always quarrel a we are now dwelling. It seems as though He that we, the recovered alcoholics, are their good bit. Mostly, I think, about how to do the had directed us to construct this cathedral assistants. greatest good for the greatest number of whose foundations already rest upon the There are those who predict that Alcohol- drunks. We shall have our childish spats and corners of the earth. On its great floor ics Anonymous may well become a new snits over small questions of money manage- 200,000 of us are now sustained in peace, spearhead for a spiritual awakening ment and who is going to run our groups for and long since we have inscribed thereon throughout the world. When our friends say the next six months. Any bunch of growing our Twelve Steps of Recovery. The older these things they are both generous and sin- children (and that is what we are) would ones among us have seen the side walls of cere. But we of A.A. must reflect that such a hardly be in character if they did less. These this cathedral going up, and one by one they tribute and such a prophecy could well prove are the growing pains of infancy, and we have seen the buttresses of the A.A. Tradi- to be a heady drink for most of us—that is, if actually thrive on them. Surmounting such tion set in place to contain us in unity for so we really came to believe this to be the real problems, in A.A.’s rather rugged school of long as God may will it so. And now eager purpose of A.A., and if we commenced to life, is a healthy exercise. hearts and hands have lifted the spire of our behave accordingly. Our society, therefore, But there are nevertheless certain areas cathedral into its place. That spire bears the will prudently cleave to its single purpose: where anger and contention could prove to name of Service. May it ever point straight the carrying of the message to the alcoholic be our undoing. We know this because upward toward God. who still suffers. Let us resist the proud as- stronger societies than our own have been —Bill W. sumption that since God has enabled us to do undone. The whole modern world is in fact well in one area we are destined to be a coming apart as never before because of channel of saving grace for everybody. political and religious strife; because men On the other hand, let us never be a closed blindly pursue wealth, fame, and personal corporation; let us never deny our experi- power regardless of the consequences to ence for whatever it may be worth to the anyone, even to themselves. These are de- world around us. Let our individual mem- structive drives that are inevitably spurred bers heed the call to every field of human by self-justification, and in all their disas- endeavor. Let them carry the experience and trous collisions they are powered by right- spirit of A.A. into all these affairs, for whatev- eous indignation, then by unreasoning anger, er good they may accomplish. For not only and finally by blind fury. has God saved us from alcoholism; the world With the most heartfelt gratitude I can has received us back into its citizenship. Yet report that we have never yet had to endure believing in paradoxes as we do, we must any such trials by fire in A.A. In all these still realize that the more the society of Alco- twenty marvelous years no such thing as holics Anonymous as such tends to its own religious or political dissension has touched affairs and minds its own business, the us. Very few have tried to exploit A.A. for greater will our general influence, the less wealth and fame or personal power. We
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A Newcomer Shares: How I Got Sober During the Pandemic
I’m Kaitlin and I’m an alcoholic. My have to drive to work, making a detour at the I could think about. My alcoholism consumed sobriety date is February 18, 2020. If gas station, getting out of the car to throw up me. I was turning 25 on April 3, about a someone told me at the beginning of this in the parking lot then walk inside and grab month and half into my sobriety and my con- year, I would be sober from drugs and water and Gatorade pretending that didn’t cern wasn’t about court or having a license alcohol I wouldn’t have believed you. I was happen but on the inside praying to God to suspension or all the fees I had to pay, my 24, working in the entertainment industry just make it to work and get through the day. concern was not drinking at my birthday. It and my life revolved around alcohol; going Eventually my coworkers started to notice sounds silly now, but I was devastated. I was to happy hours, weekend brunches and my drinking wasn’t normal and so did my mourning the life I had and the life I wanted. nights at bars, a glass of wine after work or roommate. I began hiding my drinking and I didn’t want to be an alcoholic, but I was at work sometimes. I was being young; I did lying about it. Why did they care? In my powerless over alcohol and my life had be- not have a problem. Growing up I knew mind it wasn’t affecting anyone but myself. come unmanageable. about alcoholism and Alcoholics Anony- Sure, I was coming home late and waking up In my third week I got a sponsor. I wouldn’t mous, but I didn’t witness alcoholism in its my roommate, beginning to have a personal- be where I am at today without her support full force. My Dad celebrated 34 years sober ity change, becoming mean and defensive and guidance, especially since things never this year, but because I never saw him when I drank, but again I’m in my 20’s; it’s a go the way we anticipate. Right after I took drunk, I believed I was the exception. phase! The problem was when I drank, I 30 days we went into lockdown. In my head My parents got divorced when I was 5, but loved to drive. Sober Kaitlin makes smart I’m thinking, ‘I’m getting sober at 25 during a I didn’t have a traumatic childhood so when I choices, but drunk Kaitlin is selfish. Before I pandemic—is this real?’ And it was hard. I came into the program, I felt like I didn’t got sober, I knew my drinking was getting didn’t know many people in the program yet belong. I felt like I didn’t have a good enough out of control, but I couldn’t admit it. Friends so getting connected and staying connected story because there was not one specific would offer to drive me home or suggest wasn’t easy, and I wasn’t the biggest fan of experience that I could pinpoint that Uber, but driving made me feel in control doing meetings via Zoom, but I was still will- explained why I was an alcoholic. I just knew and in my head my drinking was in control, ing to go to any lengths to stay sober no that I drank differently and when I drank, I so I was ok to drive. matter what. couldn’t control it and I didn’t care to. In the early morning of February 17, 2020 I thought my life was over the night I was I had my first drink at 17 and since that around 2am, I woke up in the driver’s side of arrested but it was just beginning. I came to first sip, I was a black out drunk. It was like a my car. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was realize I wasn’t a bad person getting good, I switch would be flipped; one minute I was on the 405 heading home and crashed my was a sick person getting well and sobriety fine and the next I wasn’t. The summer after car. I woke in a panic after however long I and Alcoholics Anonymous has gifted me a my freshman year of college I attended a had been blacked out and managed to call a better life than I could have imagined. Before concert with some friends, but I didn’t even friend for help, only to black out again and I came into the program, I believed in God make it into the venue. I was unconscious in come to as the police arrived on the scene. I and I knew who He was, but I didn’t know the parking lot underneath a pickup truck, was arrested and charged with DUI and Him, at least in the way I wanted to. Today I my friends nowhere in sight. A stranger taken to jail, but by the Grace of God I did not have a relationship with a God of my own found me and used my phone to call my kill or injure anyone or myself. I should have understanding, attend seven meetings a mom who drove 45 minutes to come pick me died that night; if not from the accident from week, continue to be of service inside and up. When I finally awoke hugging the toilet the amount of alcohol I had put into my outside of the program and show up for my in my bathroom my mom told me what body. I was arrested at 0.21 BAC, but all I friends, family and myself. happened, and I was embarrassed, but in my could think about was ‘how am I going to get My Dad once told me it’s hard to get sober, head I also told myself it wasn’t a big deal. I out of here?’ ‘How am I going to tell my but it’s even harder to stay sober. At the time was young. I didn’t know how to drink yet. I parents?’ I was concerned with my image, I didn’t understand, but as I’ve started to didn’t pace myself, drink water in between but I was in my jail cell trying not to get sick experience the gifts of sobriety it can be easy or eat enough. I would be better next time. I and feeling like I was going to die and deep to forget the bad times; the times that made began to create a pattern of justifying and down I knew I needed help. Never in my life me feel so hopeless and broken. I know that I rationalizing. would I have believed I would have been may start to become complacent and once A year after graduating college I started arrested, but that is where my drinking took again begin to rely on myself instead of my working in entertainment. That included me. Higher Power. I have experienced many gifts happy hours on the studio lot every Thurs- I attended my first meeting of Alcoholics in sobriety, one including my DMV case day after work. Best job ever, right? Well, not Anonymous the next day, still unsure if I was getting dismissed and not having a license for an alcoholic like me. After-work happy an alcoholic; I didn’t drink daily or hide bot- suspension, but one of the biggest gifts is hours that ended at 8pm would move to a tles. I didn’t fit the mold of an alcoholic I had that today I can take responsibility for my nearby bar. Staying out until 9pm or 10pm in my mind, but being full of so much shame actions and accept the consequences. My became 2am and I would wake up wonder- and guilt I was willing to try AA. I didn’t alcoholism almost killed me, but God ing how I got home and too hungover to go think I would want to drink again for a long restored me to sanity. I must remind myself to work the next morning but having to time after what had just happened, but my that I am the problem, God is my solution. show up anyway because drinking with eighth day sober I wanted to drink, and it Every day is gift and for today I am staying coworkers always seemed like a good idea at scared me. How could I want to drink after sober no matter what. the time—until it was the next morning and I everything that just happened? But it was all —Kaitlin Q., Manhattan Beach
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Job/Job, Wife/Wife, COVID/COVID
Even the sparrow has a place to lay its understanding I somehow was unable to head grasp in the live meetings. And now I can So why would I let worries steal my breath? actually remember peoples' names because Even the roses, You have glowed them they are written right there on the screen. brilliant red What am I trying to say? Simply this—we Still I'm the one You love more than this keep doing what we have always done to stay sober. We are just doing it in a different You give me everything way. We go to Zoom meetings and put our You give me everything number in chat for the newcomer. We do You give me everything I need... drive-by AA birthdays. We text and call. But we are always there for each other. These lyrics are from a song titled, The hand of AA is reaching out to those in “Everything,” by Lauren Daigle. They keep need as strongly as before Covid-19, just in a playing over and over in my head. I truly different way. believe that God does give me everything I need. Even, and especially, in this time of Even the oceans push and pull at Covid-19. God was (and is) the constant in Your command my life. He is my rock. Life is still “lifing.” We So You can still my heart with Your hand all have things to do. The most important You tell the seasons when it's time for them thing for me to do is to stay sober no matter to turn what. Job or no job. Wife or no wife. Covid or So I will trust You even when it hurts no Covid. I know that with God and AA, so- briety during Covid is possible. I keep going You give me everything to meetings. You give me everything I remember very clearly the last "live" You give me everything I need meeting I attended. It was sparse. People were leery of one another. I was uncomforta- I thank God and AA for the amazing, sober ble as Hell. But it did not matter. I had to stay life I now have. Job or no job. Wife or no wife. sober. Shortly after that, California shut Covid or no Covid. down. We were thrust into isolation. Then a wonderful thing happened. Zoom —Gina T., Rancho Palos Verdes Alcoholics Anonymous meetings were pop- Sobriety Date: 8/16/2012 ping up, and I began to attend them along with countless others. Why? Because our primary purpose is to stay sober and be Pain is Pain Cont’d… there for newcomers. AA is a "we" thing, not an "l” thing. None of us do this alone, even in The main thing I want to share is that mine lock-down and with required social distanc- may be called Stage-4 inoperable, incurable LITERATURE ing. Cancer, but that’s just a label. Pain is pain! I met a newcomer at my first Zoom meet- Don’t look at my story as: ‘mine is nothing ing. I am still not sure how she found us, but compared to hers’ because that’s bullshit! she did. I reached out to her, as we are all Pain is pain! It doesn’t matter what the label NEED BOOKS OR CHIPS? shown to do. I watched in amazement as she on it is. It does not matter! Before the pan- continued to stay sober week after week demic I was asked to speak, and at the time I Visit Central Office to purchase your through Zoom meetings. She now being of was going through chemotherapy, vomiting, essential AA Literature: service as the timer of that meeting. etc., but I did it anyway because I thought it I have watched newcomers open up was important. And they sat me at a table Big Book enough to share their truths and fears near the door so that I could get up and because old-timers have been brave enough Twelve Steps and Twelve throw-up and come back and I had to do Traditions to share their truths and fears. I began to that. Like I shared with that group that night: understand the meaning of the words in the “I’m here not to get sympathy from you, but Daily Reflections Big Book and how they were being applied to show you that we get and stay sober by to daily life. “Pause when doubtful or participating in our recovery, NO MATTER As Bill Sees It… and more. agitated," for example. I had never really WHAT!” Remember, pain is pain. You CAN heard the "doubtful” part even though I read stay sober, no matter what. 1411 Marcelina Ave, Torrance CA 90501 it countless times. —Dawn P., Redondo Beach The promises have become clearer and are coming true in my life. I am gaining an
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ASBCO Bulletin Board
IMPORTANT: Central Office is in desperate need of updated meeting information and group contacts. If your group is still hosting Zoom meetings please call Central Office at (310) 618-1180 to offer updated Zoom Meeting IDs and Passwords. If your group has face to face meetings following COVID protocols, please update Central Office stating the meeting place, time, and expectations for safety.
Phone Volunteers! We need you! There are still lots of open slots for permanent phone volunteers and back-up phone volunteers at Central Office. We will teach you how to work the phones and learn to listen and direct calls appropri- ately. Please call us or visit our website at southbayaa.org to sign up.
The Central Office Board of Directors will be conducting Service Outreach by visiting your meetings. You can help by asking about whether or not your meeting has a current CSR or GSR and volunteer to be one.
South Bay H&I is currently hosting panels through Shawl House, Thelma McMillan, and House of Hope both physically and via Zoom. As long as the current situation persists there are opportunities to be a panel leader.
Central Office and H&I need your attention and participation! November is Gratitude Month and the holidays are upon us! Thank you to all who helped keep the Central Office afloat during hard times. We need your continued support and financial contributions. What are you grateful for to- day? How can you give back? Don’t forget you can purchase literature and gifts from Central Office.
Subscribe, download, view Got a story to tell? archives, listen to stories in We are looking for 250 to 500–word articles (1-2 pages typed, single-spaced). Share your experience, strength and audio hope. Tell us how your journey got started, where you are today or send stories about your personal triumphs/ Give it as a gift struggles in sobriety. Humorous anecdotes are always wel- $28.97 = 1 year in print come! $4.00 = 30 days online $1.99 = ePub 1 month subscription We welcome your contributions via E-mail: [email protected] The Int’l Journal of Alcoholics Copies available Access the Speakeasy Online at Anonymous at Central Office www.southbayaa.org Visit aagrapevine.org
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