Hoot's Drunk a Blog

The First AA Meeting

Recently, I’ve been fortunate enough to enjoy some friends, and a few relatives, find sobriety for the first time in their lives.  It’s a wonderful emotion, because I know the tragedy of being an alcoholic. So these recent events feel good and encouraging.  It reminded me of my first meeting at AA. 

It was on Ohio Street in Santa Monica, California and was downright scary.  As I pulled up to the clubhouse, I was thrown off by the amount of people hanging around outside before the meeting, laughing and looking very happy.  No panhandling or guys with slobber in their beards.  No red eyes looking like a roadmap of Puerto Rico.

I didn’t know what to expect, but whatever notion I had preconceived, included a few winos, sitting on the ground, backs against the building, drinking out of a paper bags, and babbling on incoherently.  No, the people I saw were folks just like me, except they were sober.

That first impression and the genuinely warm reception, with the exception of a few Hardliners telling me to, “Take the cotton out of your ears and put it in your mouth,” is what made me keep coming back. I felt hope for the first time in my entire life.  “If they can do it, so can I,” I remember saying to myself.

Hoot’s First AA Meeting Part 2