Welcome to the tattoo convention

Last year, during our state’s Young People’s convention, an elegant woman in one of the elevators made positive comments about my tattoos and we engaged in discussion. Eventually, she saw my YPAA (Young People in AA) badge and asked what kind of convention was being held at the hotel. 

Always mindful of breaking the anonymity of everyone wearing a badge, I thought about saying “spiritually like-minded people.” Then I remembered the inside joke that some of us YPAAs call ourselves: a tattoo convention. So, that’s what I told her. We were a tattoo convention. 

I felt pretty satisfied with my answer until the next morning when this woman and I were seated at adjacent tables in the restaurant for breakfast, both waiting for the rest of our parties. She politely engaged me in conversation. She asked me to consult with her on some ideas for a tattoo she wanted to have done. While I could have offered opinions, I am not a tattoo artist and was forced to admit my lie. By then, some of my friends showed up and encouraged me to tell her the truth. 

So, we told her that we generally don’t admit to being AA members in public places because of the multiple reasons for personal anonymity, such as staying humble, not looking for recognition for something we should be doing anyway, and not influencing another’s perception of AA based on the activities of any one member or any group of members. 

I acknowledged that while I thought my intentions were noble, I hadn’t been honest or honorable and I had treated her with disrespect. I said I regretted my actions, not because I got caught, but because I was wrong. She accepted my amends, agreed not to judge the rest of AA based on my misconduct, and said she’d keep the true meaning of the badges from her friends also staying in the hotel.

Then she shared something with me. She knew nothing of AA, what it was about or what we do, but she knew of its existence because her grandfather was a sober member of AA in the 1940s. He moved to that city from the East Coast and her grandparents wrote letters to AA in New York so they could locate AA meetings in Arizona.

Later that day, our area archivist made a small presentation in a side room where she showed us letters from the first AA members in our state. These were people who started AA in Arizona when they moved to Phoenix from the East Coast and asked the AA foundation in New York to help them find people in Arizona to get sober. 

That’s how I learned I had been speaking to the granddaughter of the woman who wrote the letters that brought AA to my city and sobered up the people who created the Fellowship that saved my life. 

And thanks to that woman, I also learned a valuable lesson about integrity.