This was a horrible mistake. I was seated in a small white room. Two steel chairs were bolted to the floor with a steel table, also bolted to the floor between them.

When I came into AA in 1980, I was 31. The home group I chose in New Jersey was a speaker group with about 100 members and there were only about five people younger than me.

The friends I was living with got sick of watching me slowly kill myself with alcohol, so they kicked me out.

Your honor, it was just a college prank,” I said to the judge shortly after my arrest for disorderly conduct.

While visiting my son in Colorado, I decided to take in an AA meeting because I was feeling itchy and lonely for my people. Plus, it’s so much fun to make friends away from home.

I’ve been told that if you don’t remember your last drink, you probably haven’t had it yet. I don’t know if that’s true, but I remember mine well.

AA has kept me sober for over 15 years now. With a sponsor to guide me, I’ve been on this journey to a wonderful life.

Thirty years ago, I was standing in front of our junior high gymnasium. I was the new girl in town and I didn’t have many friends.

When I first came into the rooms in January of 2020, I was a nervous wreck. I had no idea what to expect. But people were welcoming and inviting, and although I was scared, I felt safe.

My husband Steve and I boarded a cruise ship on March 7, just as the COVID-19 virus was beginning to appear in the U.S.

At my very first AA meeting, two large vinyl posters were hanging on the wall. The Twelve Steps were on one poster and the Twelve Traditions were on another.

My recovery began with my third wife, Josephine. We were drinking partners and we were each particular about our drink of choice. Her drink was Scotch and mine was bourbon.

Growing up as a gay male with an alcoholic father was fearful, to say the least. Since I was a child directly affected by alcoholism, I promised myself I would never be like my father.

I’m an “out” lesbian. I got sober in AA starting in 1979 when I was 29. I’m 70 now.

I grew up as a gay man in a very conservative and religious family. Today, religion and anti-homosexuality do not necessarily go hand-in-hand, but in my day they did.

I’ve always considered myself to be a bit jumpy and sensitive. A history of physical and sexual abuse, followed by years of drinking to ease the trauma, set me up to be a reactor.

Back in 1982, I limped down the stairs to the church basement. I didn’t believe AA could possibly help. I was a broken woman, literally. I had nine broken ribs, a fractured hip and a broken heart.

I am currently locked up in prison in Virginia. Recently, I was invited to attend an AA meeting in here on Monday nights. So I signed up.

My name is Sammy and I’m an alcoholic. I am also young, mixed race, a felon, poor, queer, a dope fiend and, to top it all off, I’m a year into sobriety.

I arrived in AA in 1989, frightened and lonely.