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. . .
If you are sinking in quicksand and somebody throws you a rope, and you say “no thanks I don’t want that rope,” are you making a big mistake? That’s what was said to me as I left Brighton Hospital after my first 10 days of detoxed sobriety…
I first entered our Club in 1985. It was located on S. State St. in a small rented building. A picture of that building hangs in Room 3. It was my first week of sobriety and I didn’t have a clue. It was smoke-filled and had a snack counter run by a strange man. You had to go down a steep and narrow set of stairs to get to the meeting rooms (also filled with smoke). No one told me to get out, and some of the people seemed friendly – so I stayed. Through the years, I’ve attended other meetings (held in churches), but to this day I consider our Club my spiritual home…