Leaning on A.A. in New York

Last summer I made plans to spend October in New York – then learned that my older sister was gravely ill in Vancouver, so I bumped up my schedule to see her first. Unfortunately, she died before I could make it over. Now I would spend a couple weeks in the city, fly to Vancouver to clean out her house and hold a memorial service, then return for a few more weeks in New York visiting family and friends.

I flew to New York and stayed with Pat, an old AA friend. It had been 17 years since my last visit to New York and the first things that hit me were the ancient ironwork on bridges and the incredible violence and noise of a passing elevated train. I got over those quickly enough, but what hit me next took more effort: red neon liquor signs outside and beer ads on the subway. These were pushing buttons I’d almost forgotten about. I realised that I had a long drinking history in New York and very little sober time in the city.

It shocked me to feel uneasy about drinking… perhaps it came from being an emotionally immature alcoholic, I thought, sober 19 years but still weak and shaky. Even though my sister had suffered from Type I diabetes all her life and could have died any time, her death still hit me hard. People in and out of A.A. assured me that everyone gets torn up by the death of a close family member.

Meeting Makers Make It

My program tells me to increase participation in A.A. when the going gets tough. Now I needed meetings. Fortunately, I was in one of the birthplaces of A.A., a great city with dozens of meetings a day. Doing public information service with the Continental European Region of A.A., lately I had wished I could attend some of the conventions held around the Continent, whether in Costa del Sol or Berlin. Now I would have my very own urban A.A. retreat.

I went all over Manhattan, sometimes ‘qualifying’ – from Perry Street to Central Group at St. James Church on the Upper East Side, from the Mustard Seed to the Upright Citizens Brigade, from Tribeca to a Brazilian church on W. 59^th Street to the Fearless Group at All Souls Church on Lexington. From Sobriety in the Square to Metropolitan Group to St. Bart’s noon meeting, where a woman recognised me when I said I was from out of town. “Are you my cousin, Michael?” Yes, it was my cousin, whom I hadn’t seen in more than 30 years.

One of the first meetings I attended was the Central Group. A Haitian woman shared her 38 years of experience, strength and hope. Dignity, love and justice were her message. She said, “I’m a Haitian, well assimilated into American culture, but my heart is in A.A. first of all.” This 75-year-old woman’s story embodied the universality of the alcoholic experience to me, for her life and feelings sounded just like what I had heard in Zurich in June from a 25-year-old Swedish woman – two generations apart, raised on different continents and in different cultures, yet sharing the same disease.

One night I went out to dinner after a meeting with Ingrid and Wolfgang from Stuttgart and Antonia from New Zealand – they all had met on a cruise. Antonia lived many years in France and returned to New Zealand to learn that her area had not sent a rep to region in 25 years. We had never met but had fellowship friends in common – my friend Bill E.’s sponsor, Paul, who lives in Malaysia; Joel from Nice; Tim from Languedoc; and Jersey Pete from the Riviera. Ingrid is a lovely woman who after a teaching career became a counsellor and travels the world. Wolfgang was saddened by the recent death in Tübingen of his friend Uwe M., who had been active in CER.

My friend Pat told her story at the After Eight Group one evening. She concluded by saying that through her 27 years of sobriety she learned that no matter how hard or softly she leans on the program, A.A. is always there when she needs it.

One of my strangest experiences came at the corner of Spring St. and Lafayette in SoHo. Waiting to meet a friend, I noticed a boarded-up storefront on the corner – the sign advertised a new bar, Blackbox, New York’s only bar for on-duty airline pilots. It took me a minute to figure out that it was a joke ad touting a smartphone app for finding new bars. Fortunately, I am no longer a customer for such an app.

I sent a version of this article to the New York Intergroup newsletter, Sober News, thanking the city’s members for making sure the hand of A.A. was there for me. I made sure to mention CER service when sharing my story and people were always interested to learn how English-speaking A.A. works in Europe. Many New Yorkers told me that they had found meetings via our website when traveling.

Michael K.
Istanbul, Turkey

Editor’s note: this article has been published in accordance with our ArenA Editorial Policy.