Small-town and Big-city AA

HAVING RECENTLY SPENT an interesting and stimulating week in New York City, during which time I went to three daytime AA meetings, I have been thinking of some of the similarities and differences between big-city AA and our small-town meetings. In New York, perfect strangers showed me the same warmth and friendliness that I find in my own group, and the meetings were similar in their discussions of living problems. However, one big difference that stuck out was about anonymity. While a few people at the New York meetings knew each other, most of them used first names, with no thought of last names or families.