OIAA'S Twelfth-step Committee

When anyone pushes the 12th-Step button on the OIAA website, the response is immediate. The person writing for help instantly receives an electronic reply directing him or her to OIAA's list of online meetings, a link to GSO's list of local intergroups, and AA hotlines set up by local intergroups. Then within twenty minutes, two or three members of OIAA's 12th-Step Committee e-mail personal replies. "Our aim is to encourage those who write to get to an AA meeting," explains Susan B., chair of the committee. "We endorse participation in online AA e-mail or chat groups in conjunction with attendance at AA meetings." Susan says the committee, which was established in 2000, now has about thirty-five members who hail from ten different countries. Its purpose is to be available to the still-suffering alcoholic around the globe at any hour of the day or night. The committee carries the message the way AAs have been doing it for almost seventy years, by sharing their stories.