One Day at a Time

I attended an open AA meeting on May 5 in Danbury, CT. @ 7:30p.m. with Rich Saluga and Jessica Orama. Before the meeting began we introduced ourselves to the group leader and explained why we were there. One of my expectations of an AA meeting was that they were only attended by alcoholics or possibly people who were directly affected by alcoholism. This clearly wasn’t the case. The whole group, not just the leader, was extremely receptive to our attendance and eagerness to learn more about what goes on in an AA meeting. I was also pleasantly surprised by the open structure of the meeting. If you felt like opening up you could talk about what your day was like. On the other hand if you just wanted to quietly listen and be around people who wouldn’t judge you; that was okay too.

After listening to the comments and stories of the people attending the meeting I identified some common situations and themes that they all were able to relate to. One common theme stemmed from the AA slogan “One Day at a Time.” Some of the speakers had bad days that truly tested their will to stay sober. Many of the speakers had difficult issues that only now came to the surface after they became sober. They constantly reminded each other that they can only work on what is right in front of them. They can’t worry what’s going to happen a year from now or change mistakes from the past.