The Sobriety News is a publication of the Harrisburg Area Intergroup of Alcoholics Anonymous. It is written, edited, and read by AA members, and those interested in the AA program of recovery from the disease of alcoholism, linking one alcoholic to another.
     Our desperation to find relief from the bondage of alcoholism has led us to this program as a new "design for living". Many members utilize meetings, sponsorship, self examination, amends, prayer, meditation, AA literature, service to fellow alcoholics, and many other tools to maintain their recovery. This publication is intended as one more tool to live a life of recovery. Because each AA member has an individual way of working this program, divergent views to recovery, within the concept of the Program of Alcoholics Anonymous, are welcome. An effort is made to print all viewpoints in this forum. Articles are not intended to be statements of AA policy, nor does publication of any article imply endorsement by AA or the Harrisburg Area Intergroup.

December Calendar of Events*

Looking Ahead

The Links Page
The AA blue button above will take you to the links and current events page. Did you know that the links page also has links to Flyers of events, other AA websites and to back issues of Sobriety News? 
You can make flyers of your group's activities available to others for printing off the internet by e-mailing a copy to jfee@comcast.net  Flyers will be added as they become available and removed when an event passes. If you are looking at this on the Internet, you will see that many of the insert pictures are links you can click on to get added information or flyers. Keep checking.

Carrying The Message
A complete Calendar of Events depends on our active members contributing information about their coming events, participation of Intergroups in surrounding Districts, and our ability to gather information. We feel it is worth trying. Let us know what you think. Often, we miss opportunities within the fellowship because the message didn't get out. We all want to carry the message to other alcoholics. This will be one more way we can accomplish that.

Coming in 2006
Sobriety News will publish the Concepts, (the Concept corresponding to the number of the month; e.g.. Concept 1 in January, etc.) from this pamphlet with the hopes that it will help explain to the general membership, the spiritual principles and the relationships which should govern us in our groups’ activities and our service commitments.

This is about the Concepts; it is NOT the Concepts themselves. They are found in the book The A.A. Service Manual/Twelve Concepts for World Service, and should be read by every “trusted servant.” (A condensed version, in mimeographed form, is also available from the General Service Office on request.)

As A.A. grew up, it began with the groups—first only a few, then hundreds and then thousands. Very early an Alcoholic Foundation, later renamed The General Service Board, was formed to be responsible for our affairs. And with Dr. Bob’s death and Bill’s facing up to his own mortality, a General Service Conference assumed the leadership, which had fallen to the co-founders. Meanwhile, a tiny publishing operation and service office had grown in size and importance to the Fellowship, and a monthly journal, the A.A. Grapevine, was being published.

Ever feel like you're in a rut?  That you need to jump start your program?  If so, be on the lookout for the next 'Pockets of Enthusiasm' conference.  One was recently held in Virginia Beach and a caravan of mostly - Middletowners traveled down to hear speakers such as Sharon B. from Los Angeles, Clancy I. from Los Angeles, Sandy B. from Tampa, Florida and Tom I. from North Carolina.

Their stories weren't new; in fact I'd heard almost all of the speakers many times before – either in person or on tape.   You know that Sharon B.  is going to talk about drinking wine through a wired jaw and paying for her first Big Book in 25 cent installments. You know that Clancy is going to talk about his first sponsor, Bob.    Maybe it's the reassurance in hearing these stories over and over again that's important.  Maybe it's that the message gets a little sharper with each retelling.  Or, maybe it’s a little bit like reading the Big Book --- the words don’t change but every time it’s read something new jumps out that didn’t seem to be there before.  Most likely, it’s a little of all of the above.

In any case, the bottom line for me is that something special happens when a bunch of enthusiastic AAers come together – once again, I have living proof that the program works – and that it works even better if you’re plugged in and actively participating in AA.
Submitted by Elaine S., Bridge St. Group and Middletown Trudgers

If you'd attended  the York Acts of Recovery on November 5, you would have heard four recovery speakers who each shared their journey into recovery with a crowd of about two hundred appreciative recovered alcoholics. Between the speakers there were 15 minute breaks allowing an opportunity to meet and talk with others from Baltimore to Boston and other parts in between. In the middle of the afternoon there was a half hour for a free lunch to sustain the body through the rest of the afternoon.

The first speaker of the afternoon was Rich H from Philadelphia, whose topic was "Spiritual Principles". Rich was raised to believe that he was responsible to go out and make things happen in his life. Sometimes good things did happen and he thought he had something to do with it. He traced how alcohol had become part of making things happen (such as prison, poverty, and living in squalor). He ended up going into a recovery house with hopes of getting something to eat. He ended up agreeing to stay for a meeting in exchange for more food, he got Twelfth Stepped by a guy who took him through the steps starting that day. Not wasting a lot of time, he was made aware of his powerlessness and unmanageability, and offered the option of making a decision to work the rest of the Steps, and immediately assigned to writing his list of resentments, fears, and sexual conduct. He came looking for food, not sobriety, but ended up with  spiritual principles. This was not his plan but he has discovered that it is not about him. He knows now that God helps those who help others (not help themselves). 

Karen L who is now a member of the York Bug Light Speaker Group, shared how she grew up in a loving household that encouraged her in her early love of music and pursuit of violin virtuosity. She saw herself as a tall, fat, unattractive band geek who just did not fit in. She was unhappy with who she was and would reinvent herself at every opportunity. At thirteen, she discovered alcohol as part of the reinventing process; if you are pretending that you are an alcoholic, you need to drink. She found that it was what she had been missing and she knew what she wanted to do with her life, be a drunk. It became her primary purpose. She began getting wasted daily. If she was sober a couple of days, she would slit her wrists, or drink fingernail polish remover or other brilliant activities designed to get into mental hospitals, group homes, etc. It got so the ambulance crews knew her by name. Her mom suggested that she go to rehab and she thought that would be a good place to make some new contacts, so she agreed. The result was that through a guy she met there and wanted to impress, she reinvented herself into someone who wanted recovery. Though she really didn't, she became exposed to the AA Program. When he broke up with her, she got drunk. She'd thought that if she got a "C" in "AA" she'd be O. K. It doesn't work that way, she found that we've got to put 100% in every day - Willing is not necessarily wildly enthusiastic, we just have to do the footwork. She finally got serious about her recovery and worked the steps with a sponsor. In answer to a prayer, she saw a T shirt saying "Quit your job - Play music", and that started her back to school and teaching violin which she believes is the language of God's love.

All the way from the Field Corner Group in Dorchester, MA, Angela B brought us a message about how she "Came to believe". An overwhelming fear and loneliness started for her at age eleven, when they moved to a new town where everyone but her was blond, blue eyed, beautiful, and rich. She was highly self-centered, using others to try to fill her need to fit in. This ended getting her some jail time, which interestingly, she found so appealing that she didn't want to leave there when her time was up, there, she had friends who liked her and she fit in. She got a noon till 6:00PM job in a bar when she got out of jail, and gradually she drank more and more, though she started out just staying at the bar for the companionship. She got a DUI and her boss bailed her out; alcohol had gotten so important that it got her up each day, made daily activities bearable, and put her to sleep at the end of her day. For the DUI she was sentenced to go to two AA meetings. She went and heard a woman share about loneliness, never amounting to much, and her fear, AND that she didn't feel that way any more. Angela identified, and this gave her hope that maybe this would work for her too. She kept going back. She met some enthusiastic young people who were doing service work, and they invited her to come visit them at their home group. She started visiting on weekends, and drinking during the week. Eventually she moved there, but things didn't change until she started doing for others and working the Steps. She wishes she'd started drinking sooner so she could have gotten to AA sooner. For someone who doesn't look old enough to drink, this attests to her claim that she loves AA, loves feeling that she belongs, and she has learned the love of a God that she knew nothing about when she got here.

The final speaker of the afternoon was Albert from the Middletown and The Way Out Groups, who said he was given a topic to keep him from talking about himself. He really wondered about his topic, "A Vision for You", because it seemed so redundant. It delineated the experience Bill W had had with finding himself in the lobby of the Mayflower Hotel in Akron, after a really bad day. He was confronted on the one hand with a bar, with the attractive sounds of tinkling glasses and merriment, and a glass case with church addresses and phone numbers on the other hand. We know that he decided to use the phone numbers to try and find another alcoholic to work with, because otherwise we would not be here today. But why was that chapter there? Wasn't essentially this same story told in the Forward to the Second Edition? Wasn't it told again in the Doctor's Opinion where Dr Silkworth talked of a group of people who believed they could stay sober by sharing their recovery with other alcoholics, and wasn't it the same message that Bill told in the chapter called Bill's Story, sharing how Ebby T came to visit him? Isn't it repeated in every chapter that recovery depends on sharing with others our experience, strength and hope? Albert went on to share his own, and how in desperation, coming from prison, not knowing how to stay sober, he was  willing to surrender. As a result, without his permission, he received a spiritual awakening, when all he'd come for was to stop drinking. This tried and true method worked for Bill, for millions of others, and for Albert. Perhaps it is there because it is a vision for you.

Annual Hershey Holiday Dinner 

UPDATE: Mid-City Group reports they will not be moving.  They will continue to meet at the St. Paul's Methodist Church on the corner of River and Vine Streets. Meeting times are 7:30-8:30 on the following evenings, all are non-smoking.
Tuesday - Big Book Study,
Thursday & Saturday - Closed Discussion

Note:    The Out of the Dark Group wants everyone to know that the Group will be meeting on Christmas and New Years Morning at 9:00AM at the usual location, Wormleysburg Borough Hall, 2nd & Market Sts. Wormleysburg