English-language meetings at Chiesa di San Francesco e Santa Caterina – just opposite the Trastevere train station at the foot of Circonvallazione Gianicolense – started in 1998.
From 1994-1998 a member of our group was living near the Roman beach area and had been commuting to Rome for work and meetings. Once she became pregnant, she and her husband relocated to the city of Rome in June 1998. They moved into an apartment just off Circonvallazione Gianicolense. Even though Via Napoli and XX Settembre were now closer to reach, the member found it tiring going to meetings via public transport while pregnant, and came to the conclusion that she needed a meeting closer to home.
Meanwhile, a controversy had arisen in the Via Napoli English-speaking groups, over whether or not to make the meetings non-smoking. This was before Italian law mandated that all public spaces be smoke-free. There were many informal discussions and finally a business meeting where the vote was decisive: the Via Napoli meetings would continue to allow smoking. It was not an acrimonious split, but several of the members who had opposed smoking at Via Napoli decided to join forces with pregnant Lori in searching for a new meeting location that would be smoke-free and preferably in the Trastevere area.
Starting in July 1998, a women’s meeting took place on Monday evenings in the home of Lori U. and her husband. The early members included Marcia A., Mary Ellen B., Jo Ann C., Michelle B., Chiara C., and Sharon C. Though these small reading/discussion meetings were not advertised, they followed an AA format in every other sense, including the use of Conference-approved literature.
The search for a proper public meeting place continued, and in October 1998 the Chiesa di San Francesco e Santa Caterina granted the group use of a simple basement room. This same church already hosted meetings of Italian Alcoholics Anonymous. The room allocated for English-speaking AA was actually half underground, but it had a big table, a dozen chairs and a cupboard for storing the AA books, water boiler, herbal teas and cookies. The monthly contribution requested by the church was low, which was important for a start-up group.
At first the newly established meetings consisted of a women’s meeting on Mondays and a 12&12 meeting on Fridays. For a while there was also an 11th Step meeting on Saturdays at 9 a.m. where Michelle B., also pregnant with her first child, was a regular. However, attendance on Saturdays was spotty and this meeting folded after a few months.
Among the regulars at the Friday 12&12 meeting were Michael B., his sponsor Bruce W., Henry L., long-time chairperson Michelle B., and Jen Z., Marion M., Marcia A., Mary Ellen B., Chiara C. and Sharon C.
The Monday women’s meeting – chaired for a long spell by Lisa P., and more recently by Mary Ellen B. – has read through practically all of the approved A.A. literature, including the historical and biographical books by Dr. Bob and Bill. As of this writing, the group is reading Came to Believe.
All meetings at the Stazione Trastevere location have always been “closed” meetings – that is, open to all those who have a desire to stop drinking. The two meetings have a joint treasury and elect a single treasurer.
Perhaps in the second or third year, the church offered the English-speaking groups a better room – smaller, on the ground floor of the attached parish building, and with plenty of natural light in the summer months. The meetings took place there all the way up until 2011, when the church began a major refurbishing of the whole ground floor. At that point English-speaking AA moved upstairs to a small room that was intended to be temporary, but so far there are no plans to move back downstairs. The conditions are a little difficult – the room has two doors and tends to be used as a passageway – but Post-it notes on the doors stating “Riunione in Corso” (Meeting in progress) have helped reduce the number of interruptions.
Since 1998, a “Gratitude Dinner and Candlelight Meeting” has been held annually on a Saturday evening in the second half of November at the Chiesa di San Francesco e Santa Caterina, organized jointly by the Monday and Friday groups. Dinner is a pot-luck buffet, followed by a candle-lit meeting on the topic of gratitude. All of Rome English-speaking AA is invited, along with family members and friends. One or two AA’s from out of town or abroad typically turn up as well to catch a meeting and enjoy the fellowship and good food. The Gratitude Dinner and Candlelight Meeting has become a regular fixture in Rome’s AA calendar.
The Trastevere groups also take the lead in encouraging English-speaking AA’s to attend Italian AA’s annual Raduno (convention or round-up) in Rimini in mid-September. A small convoy of vehicles traditionally leaves Rome on a Friday morning for the 4- to 5-hour drive across the Appenines to Rimini. Others travel by train. The Italian Raduno organizers now set aside a meeting room at the convention center to be shared between English- and German-speaking AAs. Additional meetings generally take place at one of the hotels where English-speaking AAs are accommodated for the weekend. The Trastevere groups look forward to Rimini every year as a chance to connect with loners, expat AAs and other English speakers from around the Mediterranean, such as those from Malta AA who regularly attend.
Despite declining attendance in recent years, the doors remain open at both the Monday evening women’s meeting (18.15 to 19.15 hours) and the Friday evening 12&12 meeting (18.30 to 19.30 hours). The groups regularly welcome visitors who are in Rome for either short or extended periods.
Editor’s note: this article has been published in accordance with our ArenA Editorial Policy.
June 2013