Featured Member of the Club: Teresa K.

My first AA meeting was at the Washtenaw Alano Club.  For the first year of my sobriety, I didn’t go anywhere except the Alano Club for my meetings.  I don’t even recall when I got adventurous enough to check out meetings away from the Club – it may have been another year before I felt that confident.  The Alano Club was within my comfort zone.  Nothing else was.

The Washtenaw Alano Club was and is a sanctuary for me.   My life had become completely unmanageable and every area of my life was in crisis.  Meetings were the only place where people understood how I’d managed to screw up everything in my life.  Outside of meetings, I was in shock and traumatized and knew that no one would understand that I wasn’t a bad person – I had been suffering from active alcoholism.

As I continued to attend meetings at the Washtenaw Alano Club, I started to meet people who were similarly afflicted.  I began to attend the “meeting before the meeting” and socialize with people.  I began to attend the “meeting after the meeting” and hang out at the Club after the meetings to talk with fellow alcoholics and addicts.  I started to make friends.  Real friends.  Friends who wanted me to get better and nothing more.

In the nice weather, my friends and I would sit outside at the Club’s picnic tables and talk about the Steps, our sponsors, and our issues.  It saved my life.

Without a safe place to come for both meetings and fellowship, I could not have gotten sober.  My most treasured friends are the people I met at the Alano Club in those meetings before and after the meeting.

I want to help make sure that what was freely given to me, this safe space to recover, is available to the next suffering alcoholic and addict who comes along and also needs a safe place to recover.  “When anyone, anywhere, reaches out for help, I want the hand of A.A. always to be there.  And for that: I am responsible.”    See you at the next meeting!

Thank you, Teresa for your continued dedication to the WAC!

WAC Newsletter – October 2018