For as long as I can remember, I didn’t fit in with other people and I didn’t want to. In fact, I wanted to prove that I could do things better than anyone.

After 19 years of drinking, my introduction to AA came in 1972 in Canoga Park, California. I was sick and tired of being sick and tired and I didn’t want to live that way one more day.

I came into AA in 1969. I was 19 years old. I had hit a low bottom, landing in hospitals and jails, and surviving bad car and motorcycle accidents. 

When a friend recently asked me to speak at a sober seniors’ conference last October on the eve of my 38th year of sobriety, I was a little disappointed. Was I really a senior now?

Back in 1974 when I was a new AA member, the Fifth Tradition was displayed on a banner in every meeting and people talked mostly about their drinking.

I had no idea when I walked into AA 36 years ago that I’d be where I am today. I’ve been sober more than half my life, surrounded by so much love.

At my first AA meeting in 1965, I felt embraced by the love in the room right away. People brought coffee, held the cup for me and made me feel special.

The Seven Deadly Sins of pride, greed, lust, anger, gluttony, envy and sloth are mentioned in our literature.

While each AA meeting is free to run itself as it wishes, almost all meetings that I’ve attended over decades of sobriety discourage cross-talk.

In thinking about this Tradition I’m reminded of my friend George. In the fall of 94 I was on our local intergroup call list.

Adversity for a trauma-human is like breathing. It’s something that just always seems to be there. The real difference happens when your solution stops working.

It was a beautiful, late spring day in Northeastern Ohio in June of 1988. The temperature was warm and the threat of snow finally dissipated.

I grew up in a small town where drinking was simply part of life. You didn’t have a party without lots of beer.

It was more pain than I ever expected to face in my life, let alone in sobriety.

I was sitting in an end-of-week staff meeting listening to a coworker making multiple excuses for some questionable actions he had been taking recently.

When I was 5 years old, my mother would take me with her on Monday mornings to the church to help count money that had been collected the day before at Sunday mass.

I recently found out that there can be a positive side of being sick with the flu. I was able to catch up on some reading.

In our family, you only prayed to God to get out of trouble. I grew up as a chronically sick kid. It was a tough childhood, as doctors weren’t sure I’d live past 10.