Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
July 3 - 6, 2025

It was late December and my wife and I had been invited by my 6-year-old daughter’s teacher to come to a parent gathering at her elementary school.

During the summer of 2007, Sally, my second wife, and I were living in Nashville, Tennessee. I regularly attended a men’s AA meeting at a sober clubhouse on Sunday evenings.

I sobered up in September of 1982.

Back in 2020, our Christmas morning AA breakfast was anticipated more than ever.

I often witness members at AA meetings express their emotions with tears; usually over recognition of the harms done to themselves or others, as well as over a newfound awareness of God

In the summer of 1993, I felt uniquely remote from in-person AA fellowship. I could no longer attend meetings due to some injuries.

Recently, a member named Ora chaired our Babes in Recovery meeting and we recognized each other from an AA roundup over 30 years ago.

I’m the secretary of the St.

When I was I a kid, I used to look forward to summer because I got to spend it on our farm.

When I walked into the Northland Group in Austin, Texas in June of 1982, I didn’t know what to expect.

In 1986, I had five years of sobriety in AA.

My life wasn’t really that bad. My wife and kids were totally fed up with me. I had high blood pressure, anxiety, panic attacks, the sweats, insomnia, headaches, and I was broke.

I got sober at 34. I had never exactly been fired from a job, but I always made it clear that any job I had was beneath me.

A cerulean blue sky blanketed our sober living house in Monterrey as the wide-open French doors invited a small wren to fly into our living room.

It was our eighth year of  wintering in St. Augustine, Florida, and the excitement built as my wife and I crossed the Vilano Beach Bridge into our nation’s oldest city.

In 2013, I was 30 years old and sitting in jail —again. This was after my third DWI arrest in 12 months. It wasn’t a big deal to me though.

You’ve probably heard of the Stanley Cup, but you may not have heard of the Coffee Cup.

One time I sat in a meeting called the Happy Hour Group and shared, “I want to be happy,” which made everybody laugh.