It was our regular men’s meeting.
The electronic meeting room was opened early, and we were enjoying a pre-meeting gabfest, catching up on personal news. It was the usual banter and humour of AA brothers.
In the midst of our laughter, a new face and name came onto the tiles of pictures on our computer screens.
We saw an older man. He was sitting at his desk, and over his shoulder, a young lady worked the keyboard of his computer. When she was satisfied that she had successfully signed in, she looked up and said directly into the webcam, in a firm tone, “I know this is a meeting for men only, I am just setting my father up. He is helpless with computers. I will set him up and then I will leave.” Then she turned to the older man, whom we could see on our computer screens, and said in a tone that cut off any disagreement, “There, you are set up. Sit here, listen and learn. I will come back in an hour.”
She turned back to the webcam, said “goodbye,” to us, and “I’ll be back,” to our newcomer, and left the room.
We all watched our screens, one of the guys said, “Welcome, is this your first meeting?”
“Yes,” came the cautious reply. “I have never been to an AA meeting before. I hope it is OK that I just show up like this.”
He continued, looking at his screen rather than the webcam, “my daughter called your central office and set me up for this meeting. She found me drinking this morning; we had a bit of a confrontation. She decided I needed to get in touch with AA, as you heard, she can be firm. So here I am.”
It was a great meeting. We got his name and all his contact information. We posted our names as well. One of the guys agreed to deliver a Big Book the next day and we assigned him to a temporary sponsor. A successful introduction to AA. And btw, as I write this, he is four weeks sober and attending four meetings a week.
When this pandemic hit, we pivoted to online meetings and kept the bridges to sobriety open. This took effort, and we had to work at it even when we did not like it. Thank goodness we did.
For many of our AA brothers and sisters who don’t like online meetings, calling around and keeping in touch is good. But calling around and keeping in touch does nothing for the newcomer who shows up with the aid of his computer-savvy daughter.
Andy C says
From Dave In Calgary
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“Awesome story. Thanks for sharing – another reason to be proud or our fellowship. Hope you are having a great day Andy. “