Sobriety News
Sobriety News
STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
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.
August
Calendar of Events
* Indicates Flyer on the Links
page
| Aug 3 | Thursday | 6:45PM | HAI Intergroup @ Fellowship House |
| Aug 4 | Friday | 8:00PM | 40th St. Speaker Sherry from 19th St. |
| Aug 4 | Friday | 8:30PM | 19th St. Speaker Bob |
| Aug 5 | Saturday | 8:00PM | Hershey Speaker Walter D from the Mount Joy Group |
| Aug 6 | Sunday | 9:00AM | Out of the Dark Open Speaker Meeting |
| Aug 6 | Sunday | 8:00PM | Bridge St. Speaker Donnie W from Lykens Group |
| Aug 11 | Friday | 8:30PM | 19th St. Speaker Duane G |
| Aug 13 | Sunday | 8:00PM | Bridge St. Speaker Linda R from Women's Serenity Group |
| Aug 14 | Monday | 6:45PM | District 36 meeting @ Fellowship House |
| Aug 14 | Monday | 7:01PM | Unity Committee @ Dillsburg Group |
| Aug 17 | Thursday | 6-8:30 | Palmyra Group's Fifth Anniversary* |
| Aug 18-20 | Weekend | 9th annual Sunlight of the Spirit Conference in York, PA* | |
| Aug 18 | Friday | 8:30PM | 19th St. Speaker Ron H from Up the Creek |
| Aug 20 | Sunday | 8:00PM | Bridge St. Speaker Carol M from Rule 62 Group |
| Aug 24 | Thursday | 7:00PM | Middletown Speaker |
| Aug 25-27 | Weekend | 18th annual PENNSCYPAA, Erie, PA* | |
| Aug 25 | Friday | 8:30 | 19th St. Anniversaries |
| Aug 26 | Saturday | 12-5 | HAI picnic @ New Cumberland Boro Park* |
| Aug 27 | Sunday | 8:00 | Bridge St. Speakers Chet from Carlisle Group |
| Aug 31 | Thursday | 7:00PM | Middletown Speaker |
Looking Ahead
| Sept 5-10, | Tues-Sun | 49th Sessions By-The-Sea* |
| Sept 10 | Sunday | 1:00-5:00 | Dillsburg Pig Roast - Speaker Kelly M @ 3:00Pm* |
| Sept 16 | Saturday | 11:00AM | District 64 Workshop in Akron, PA* |
| Sept 22-24 | Weekend | 22nd annual Women's Serenity Retreat* | |
| Sept 24 | Sunday | 12-6 | Al-Anon District 21 picnic @ Fort Hunter Park* |
| Sept 29-30 | Fri/Sat | 7:30-10:00 & 9:00-4 | BBSG 3rd Annual Primary Purpose Workshop http://bbsgpa.org |
| Oct 7 | Saturday | Emotional Sobriety Workshop with Polly Pistol in Middletown. Details to follow | |
| Jul 2008 | TBD | Al-Anon International Convention - Pittsburgh, PA | |
| Jul 2010 | TBD | AA International Convention - San Antonio, TX |
To links and current events 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 has links to Flyers of
events, other AA websites and to back issues of Sobriety News? Currently,
there is an ongoing project to add recreations of old paper copies of Sobriety
News, so they too can be available freely to those who wish to
browse. 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.
Borough
Park this year on August 26, from noon till 6:00PM. Get your $5.00 tickets soon
from your Intergroup Rep (children under age 12 are free), to make sure a
barbeque chicken will be waiting for you.
There will be games for the kids, and for
the adults. Barbeque
chicken, hot dogs and hamburgers will be proffered. Bring a desert, salad, or
covered dish to share if you wish. Have fun and stay for the AA open discussion
meeting at about 4:00PM. Bring a comfortable chair if you don't enjoy picnic
benches. This is always a fun affair.
Intergroups
Unity Committee Active Again
On 7/11
If invited, a group of active service oriented alcoholics, on behalf of the Unity Committee may come breath some fresh air into your group.
9th Annual Sunlight of the Spirit
The 9th Annual Sunlight of the Spirit
Conference will be held this year August 18 through August 20. The location will
again be the Holiday Inn on Arsenal Road (first road east of Interstate 83 at
Rt. 30 exit). Registration is again $20.00 to
cover the expense of the Convention. Register early, as the 400 available spaces
go quickly and are usually sold by June. The tentative schedule is shown below.
This is always an outstanding recovery event and we are lucky to have it so
close by. You can complete and print the registration form at their website www.sosyorkpa.org/index.html
| August 18 | Friday | 8:00PM | Larry O | Upper Marlboro, MD |
| August 19 | Saturday | 9:00AM | Chet H | Hummelstown, PA |
| August 19 | Saturday | 11:00AM | Dennis N | Charlotte, NC |
| August 19 | Saturday | 4:00PM | Patti O | Laguna Nigel, CA |
| August 19 | Saturday | 8:00PM | Wayne B | Santa Monica, CA |
| August 20 | Sunday | 9:30AM | Don M | Louisville, KY |
Area # 59 Meeting
Schedules
There is a link to the Meeting
Schedules here,
( if you have Microsoft Word, you can print out the schedules that use the
doc. extension). These schedules are current with the latest information
available. If you see an error, or information for your meeting has been
changed, the schedule will be updated if you notify us at schedule update
,or if you notify an
Intergroup Officer, or mail the info to HAI, Fellowship House, 1251 S.
19th Street, Harrisburg, PA 17105.
There are schedules available for many Districts within Area # 59, including Lebanon, York and Lancaster Counties, as well as for District 42 (Sunbury-Lewistown), District 35 (Gettysburg-Chambersburg, and Hanover), District 38 Pottsville, Northeastern Pennsylvania (Wilkes-Barre-Scranton), Reading Area, Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton, Southeastern PA, and Williamsport District 48.
Recently, schedules and websites for District 58 ( Schuylkill County), and District 59 (Bloomsburg - Danville) have been added.W
hen I'm feeling lousyWe need your
help locating old copies of Sobriety News
We are looking for older copies of
sobriety news that were created before the website was developed. We have
in archive everything from January 2000 to present plus the following older
editions.
1996 - August,
October, November, December
1997 - January, March through the rest of the
year,
1998 - January, February,
March, June
Sobriety News was first published in 1983. If you have one of the missing copies and would like to help, please contact
obsessed489@comcast.net or jfee@comcast.net We will make a copy of your edition and return it to you. Thanks in advance for your help.Carrying The
Message
Volunteers Needed for Dauphin Co.
Women's Prison
Dauphin
County Women's
Prison is in need of volunteers to carry the message to those currently
incarcerated. This is a chance
to be of service
to those "But for the Grace of God" could be us. If interested
please contact Karen M @ 717-938-5953 or @ beautylady@comcast.net.
One year of sobriety is required.
Traditions
Checklist*
TRADITION
EIGHT:
Alcoholics
Anonymous should remain forever nonprofessional, but our service centers may
employ special workers.
1. Is my own behavior accurately described by the Traditions? If not, what needs changing?
2. When I chafe about any particular Tradition, do I realize how it affects others?
3. Do I sometimes try to get some reward - even if not money - for my personal AA efforts?
4. Do I try to sound in AA like an expert on alcoholism? On Recovery? On Medicine? On Sociology? On AA itself? On Psychology? On Spiritual Matters? Or, Heaven help me, even on Humility?
5. Is a group treasurer's report unimportant business? How does the treasurer feel about it?
6. How important in my recovery is the feeling of self respect, rather than the feeling of being always under obligation for charity received.
*The Traditions Checklist Questions were originally published in the AA Grapevine in
conjunction with a series on the Twelve Traditions
that began in November 1969, and ran through September 1971. Sobriety
News prints the Checklist for the number of
the
month
that corresponds to the number of the
Tradition that it deals with, because of the prohibitive length of all twelve.
It is
important
that we be aware of the Twelve Traditions in our lives of recovery, because they
help assure that AA will continue
to be
here
for us, and for others who want it.
Printed
by permission. THE AA GRAPEVINE INC., PO BOX 1980, GRAND CENTRAL STATION, NEW
YORK, NEW YORK 10163-1980
12 Concepts
Illustrated
From the publication
Concepts Illustrated, The Sobriety News will publish the Concept each
month, which corresponds to the number of the month, because we so seldom are
exposed to these very important concepts of relationships, whether it be between
levels of the
Concept VIII
The Trustees of the
General Service Board act in two primary capacities: (a) With respect to the
larger matters of over-all policy and finance, they are the principal planners
and administrators. They and their primary committees directly manage these
affairs, (b) But with respect to our separately incorporated and constantly
active services, the relation of the Trustees is mainly that of full stock
ownership and of custodial oversight which
they exercise through their ability to elect all directors of these entities.
This Concept deals
with the ways the General Service Board "discharges its heavy
obligations," and its relationship with its two subsidiary corporations: A.
A. World Services, Inc. and the A. A. Grapevine,-Inc.
Long experience has proven that the board "must devote
itself almost exclusively to the larger questions of policy, finance, group
relations and leadership....In these matters, it must act with great care and
skill to plan, manage and execute."
The board, therefore, must not be distracted or burdened with
the details or the endless questions which arise daily in the routine operation
of the General Service Office or the publishing operations, including the
Grapevine. "It must delegate its executive function" to its
subsidiary, operating boards.
"Here the board's attitude has to be that of custodial
oversight....The trustees are the guarantors of good management of A. A. World
Services, Inc. and the A. A. Grapevine, Inc....by electing the directors of
these service arms, a part of whom must always be trustees.... The executive
direction of these functions is…lodged in the…service corporations
themselves, rather than the General Service Board. Each corporate service entity
should possess its own bylaws, its own working capital, its own executives, its
own employees, its own offices and equipment."
Bill draws from earlier mistakes by the General Service Board
in trying to run the service functions directly and warns repeatedly against
“too much concentration of money and authority.”
Printed by permission of A. A. World Service
“I am responsible when anyone anywhere reaches out for help, I want the hand of AA to always be there and for that I am responsible”.
Help for the
Hearing Impaired
Keep
coming back, it gets better
then it gets worse, then it gets real
then it gets different
then it gets real different
Internet Source
for Recorded AA Talks
There is a new source
for some good AA recording of talks from the Harbor City Speakers, Acts of
Recovery. South College Speaker Group, Steps in Action, Unity in Action,
White Rose and various others. These are free for you to download in MP3
format on your computer. The Web address is http://greatfact.org/ You can hear
speakers from the Greater Harrisburg Acts of Recovery that you may have
missed.
It
pays to bend your knees
before you bend your elbow
Anecdotage
Two drunks are driving down the highway drinking beer. All of a sudden they see a police car's lights flashing in the rear view mirror. "What are we going to do?" asks the drunk passenger. "Don't worry, I know what to do. Peel the label off your bottle and stick it to your forehead. Let me do all the talking." They pull over and the cop gets out. "May I see your license and registration?" he asks. The guy gives him his license. "Have you been drinking?" "No officer. We haven't." "Well, you were weaving back and forth. Are you sure you haven't had anything to drink?" The officer asked. "I swear officer. I haven't had a sip." "Well why do you have beer labels on your foreheads?" The man answers, "These aren't labels. We are alcoholics, and we're on the patch."
All my life I
wanted to be someone
now I wish I had been more specific
New Meetings and Changes
A new meeting will be starting on Wednesday, September 6th in Middletown. The meeting will be held @ the Evan. United Methodist Church at 157 E. Water St. (Water & Spruce) from 7:00PM-8:30PM. It is an open speaker meeting. The format is two 10 minute speakers followed by a 10 minute break, and then a main speaker.
A new meeting will be starting in September. The meeting will be held at the United Church of Christ @ 56 Banks Street in Pennbrook. The group will meet on Thursdays from 7:00-8:00PM. The 1st & 3rd Thursdays will be a beginners meeting and the 2nd & 4th Thursdays will be a step meeting.
The Lambda Group (gay), which meets at the Friends Meetinghouse at 6th and Herr Sts. on Mondays and Fridays is changing the meeting time for the Friday meeting to 8:00PM. Both meetings now are 8:00PM closed, non-smoking, except the last Friday, which is an Open Speaker Meeting.
The There is a Solution Group which meets on Thursdays at 6:30 on Jerusalem Rd. in Mechanicsburg is in need of support. Copy the flyer on the links page and take it to your group.
The Out of the Dark Group has changed it's format for the 1st Sunday of each month. The group meets at 9:00AM at the Wormleysburg Borough Hall and starting in March, 2006 the meeting will be an open speakers meeting.
The Millersburg Group which formerly met on Monday Nights has changed the name of the group to The Open Door Group and will now meet on Tuesdays at 8:00PM. The meeting is held at the Feed My Sheep Ministries located at 242 Market St, Millersburg. The format is Open discussion and it is a non-smoking meeting.
The new Loysville "Empty Jug" meeting has moved to the Assembly of God Church on 6th Street in Newport. The meetings are still Saturday nights at 7:00PM, and the formats are unchanged, see the flyer .
The Mid-Morning Reprieve Group which meets on Tuesday mornings @ 10:00AM at 16th and Bridge Streets is in ne
ed of your support. Please see the flyer on the links page for more details.There is a change of place for the Sunday night Al-Anon meeting. Formerly Holy Spirit Hospital, now at the: Chapel Hill UCC (corner of Poplar Church & Erford Rds.), entrance in rear of church, 2nd floor-Rm. 4. Also, Al-Anon's next District meeting is on Tues. Jan. 31st @ 6:00 at Trinity Lutheran Church in Camp Hill Rm. 232.
Please
Lord, teach us to laugh again, but
God don't ever let us ever forget that we cried
Ju
ly Intergroup MeetingDonations
Harrisburg Area
Intergroup
District 36
1251 S. 19th
St.
PO Box 5325
Harrisburg, PA.
17104
Harrisburg, PA.
17110
Also, the addresses for contributions to Area 59 and GSO are
Eastern PA General Service Area
59
General
Service Office
1112 Silver Maple
Dr.
Box #459
Clarks Summit , PA
18411
Grand Central Station, New York, NY 10163
Pearl of the
Month
When listing the people we have harmed, most of us hit another solid
obstacle. We got a pretty severe shock when we realized that we were
preparing to make a face-to-face admission of our wretched conduct to those we
hurt. It had been embarrassing enough when in confidence we had admitted
these things to God, to ourselves, and to another human being. But the
prospect of actually visiting or even writing the people concerned now
overwhelmed us, especially when we remembered in what poor favor we stood with
most of them. There were cases, too, where we had damaged others who
were still happily unaware of being hurt. Why, we cried, shouldn't bygones
be bygones? why do we have to think of these people at all? These
were some of the ways in which fear conspired with pride to hinder our making a
list of all the people we had harmed.
Pgs 78/79 of Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions
Food For
Thought
Contributions
are made to Food For Thought by recovering alcoholics who have this outlet to
share feelings and opinions about living in recovery. The material included does
not necessarily express the views of Harrisburg Area Intergroup, or Alcoholics
Anonymous. It is simply an opportunity for recovering alcoholics to express
thoughts they would like to share. Why not share something of yourself with our
readers?
Dear Ask an Alkie,
I'm 20 years old and have a
problem with drinking. Aren't I too
young to be an alcoholic? Is there help for me?
Signed,
Young Drinker with Questions
Dear Young Drinker,
There is help for you. Over
the years there has been an ever-increasing number of young people joining the
ranks of AA. The message has come through that it is not
necessary to throw away a lifetime before asking for help. And rarely, nowadays,
do we hear old-timers saying, "You! You're not old enough to be an
alcoholic!" In AA, we are
building bridges across the generation gap. There are meetings and conferences
of Young People in AA. The stated purpose of these is to foster strength and
unity by bringing young people together to
exchange ideas and to discuss problems of living and recovery. A great
value of young people's groups is not so much for the young people who have
found sobriety as it is for those young people who don't yet know that they
qualify for AA. However, don't
restrict yourself only to Young People's meetings because AA needs no
specialization by age. We are all in this together. The older members also
know how you feel and will take you under
their wing and love you until you can
again stand on your own two feet. You
will learn that in AA there is no age difference. You will have friends of
all ages. So learn from the "old" timers as well as other young people
in AA and come join us.
Signed,
Ask an Alkie
The
biggest problem in the world
could have been easily solved when it was small
This Month in AA
History
1936 Frank Buchman and
the Oxford Group experienced an international public relations disaster. A
NY World Telegram article by William H. Birnie, quoted Buchman as
saying, "I thank heaven for a man like Adolph Hitler, who built a
front-line of defense against the anti-Christ of Communism."
Although the remark was taken out of context in its reporting it would plague
Buchman's reputation for many years. It marked the beginning of the
decline of the OG.
1937 Bill and Lois stopped attending Oxford Group meetings. The NY AA's separated from the OG.
1947 The original Harrisburg AA group relocated to 2nd & Chestnut in Harrisburg. It was known as the Harrisburg Group and was 50 members strong. This was the only group between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Members from outside the area traveled 50 miles or more each way to attend the meeting.
1948 The Grapevine announced that, based on a subscriber survey, the Sept. issue would be in a new pocketsize format of 32 pages.
1981 The Mechanicsburg Serenity Group held its first meeting
SOBRIETY NEWS is published monthly, and is usually available on the website the Wednesday before the first Thursday of each month, so paper copies can be distributed to Reps at the Intergroup meeting. You can locate this newsletter, as well as lots of other stuff that would interest members of groups belonging to the Harrisburg Area Intergroup, at http://www.aaharrisburg.org/
INTERNET
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REMOVAL