welcome to sober Sunrise a podcast bringing you AA speaker meetings with stories of experience strength and Hope from around the world we bring you several new speakers weekly so be sure to subscribe whether you join us in the morning or at night there's nothing better than a sober Sunrise we hope that you enjoy today's speaker thanks Chris my name is Rob and I'm a grateful happy alcoholic hey Rob I'm also just for the for the sake of the record I'm a member of the Somerset Hills group that meets uh Friday nights at 8:00 in Basking Ridge New Jersey um my sobriety date is April 26th of 1988 and I currently have the pleasure of uh serving The Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous as the chairman of the cooperation with the professional Community Committee in Northern New Jersey area 44 um I had I when I first got involved in service it was simply because it was something that I thought I hadn't done and might like to experience U my sponsor was not involved in service none of my friends were then or for the most part are now involved in service it was something that it was a kind of a a um a call that that that i s sort of heard somewhere I was at a meeting and I saw a poster on a wall and uh it was just one of these memorable little passages and it says when God calls don't look over your shoulder to see who's following and I always interpreted that to mean that when I when when my course appears clear to me that I should simply follow it and not worry about who else is coming along with me so when I was about I had done my my step work and um I had been a you know I had made hundreds of gallons of coffee I had uh gone I had been group secretary I had been Treasurer at a couple different groups I had chaired a lot of meetings um I was book Booker still am a Booker um I've been a Booker for 15 years um but I had done all that stuff that was available to me at the group level and enjoyed it and continued to enjoy it but I I realized that I had heard a lot about this stuff that was happening out beyond the reaches of the group which I knew nothing about and um so at about four years sober I volunteered to be the GSR of of my home group at the time and I attended my first district meeting now if this none of this makes sense to you hopefully by the end of the evening it will and that started me off on my exposure to the opportunities for service beyond the group level um and I've pretty much stayed involved right along I I there have been times when I thought GE I had about enough of this I'm going to take a break and um like alpacino just when I thought I was out they pull me back in you know I get a phone call from somebody and I don't say no um I want to take a minute when I was getting involved early on in service there were there were a lot of things were different 15 years ago the fellowship at least in this immediate area was different uh we weren't talking about working the steps from the book we were barely working them off the wall um and and not many people were talking about service so when I started to move in this Direction people were calling me Senator hey Senator um you know and when I tried to encourage other people to get involved because as I became involved in in service I saw that there were a lot of unfulfilled um positions and I was trying to encourage other people to get involved and they were saying ah I can't I don't like that political stuff I can't get involved in that I'm not interested which I thought was a shame um because when I pursued what their level of understanding was about these things they weren't interested in I found out they didn't know anything about it and and it was it was um contempt performed prior to investigation I don't want to get off on a negative note here but let me just read a couple of of thoughts to you there's a tradition checklist that's available on the gso website and uh the questions in this checklist are ALS kind of built around um sort of trying to personalize the Traditions which if if you read them seem to apply more to the group than to the individual but these questions were originally published in the gra Vine in conjunction with a series on the 12 traditions that began in November 1969 and ran through September 1971 while again they were originally intended to primarily for individual use many groups have since found them uh as a basis for wider discussion and they posed questions like this and I'm not going to I'm not going to go through all of these and the questions are intended to provoke uh some thought and again I won't even tell you in conjunction with what tradition uh these questions are asked but they're they're interesting questions and they sort of set the tone for should I be getting involved in service and why aren't I getting involved in service do I put down some aa aa activities as if I is if I were Superior for not participating in this or that aspect of AA am I informed about AA as a whole do I support in every way I can AA as a whole or just the parts I understand and approve of uh do I criticize or do I trust and support my group officers AA committees and office workers although I have been sober for a few years am I still willing to serve my turn at ah yours and group discussions so I sound off about matters on which I have no experience and little knowledge do I insist that there are only a few right ways of of doing things in AA does my group always consider the welfare of the rest of AA of nearby groups of loners in Alaska of internationalists miles from port of a group in Rome or El Salvador do I always bear in mind that to those well let me get back to that one uh do I resist formal aspects of AA because I fear them as authoritative do I ever give the impression that there is only that that there is really an AA opinion on antibus tranquilizers doctors psychiatrists churches hospitals jails alcohol the federal government legalizing marijuana vitamins and alanon and altine can I honestly share my personal experience concerning any of these without giving the impression that I'm stating AA opinion and going back to what I almost read a moment ago do I always bear in mind that to those outside who who know I am in AA I may to some extent represent the entire beloved Fellowship the questions really are are kind of that's what I sensed way back when that there were a lot of people who were who weren't interested who who criticized it who didn't know what it was about but didn't think it was part of their recovery and I said you know I'm going to go try it um and I have since found a lot of good reasons for wanting to try it somebody could somebody read this first page of this for me so I'm not doing all the talking here tonight would you mind just reading this this is is taken from the service manual and it pretty much explains what the third Legacy is about and why it's important to us Mar hi Marty a legacy service Mar 12 step carrying the message is the basic service that the AA Fellowship gives this is our principle and and the main reason for our existence therefore AA is more that a set of principles is the society for alcoholics in action we must carry the message help we ourselves and those who haven't been given the truth may die hence an AA service is anything whatever that helps us to reach a fellow supper ranging all the way from the 12 cent itself to a 10 cent phone call and a cup of coffee and to AA general service office for National and international action the sum total of all these Services is our third Legacy of service Services include meeting places Hospital cooperation and trop office they need folks in good publicity for almost every description they call for committees delegates trustees and conferences and not to be forgotten they need voluntary money contribution from thanks very much um my point is and hopefully this will be the last time I try to make it tonight is that the service work that I got involved in not necessarily face-to-face 12 step work which I still participate in but the service committee work that I got involved in was was absolutely necessary to the Health and Welfare of the fellowship and I and I I'm certain uh that down the road it it benefits some alcoholic that I'm never going to meet um just to put things in context and again I'm sure most of you know this and I'm not going to belabor this because I trust that you do but the first map in here sort of puts puts us in in context where we are north um area 44 is part of of a of the North American AA region um this region is managed by the general service office in New York it includes all of the United States and Canada and there are eight regions we are in the Northeast region and I just kind of broke out a little map there to show you what what that Northeast region is about it's 18 service areas in 11 states again I'm just going to kind of flip through this quickly I just kind of want you to understand who we are and where where we live sort of those regions are then broken down into areas we're one of those 91 areas there are 91 areas in in the in the gso region we are area 44 on the next map it shows you what area 44 is it's all the northern counties all the northern counties in New Jersey down as far as ocean and Mammoth counties so we have 91 areas in North America within we are one of those 91 areas we are Northern New Jersey area 44 and within area 44 there are 41 districts we are one of those districts and the last map is our district district 18 so if anybody ever ask you what area you in you say area 44 Northern New Jersey and what's your District district 18 if you live in one of the communities on this map by the way if if you attend a group or if your home group doesn't have a GSR and your home group exists in district 18 the district meeting is indicated on this last map it meets the second Monday of every month in Berkeley Heights and uh your group should be U represented there but all pretty clear I just kind of wanted to give you a sense of where we were in the World any questions at this point all right as you know I I'm not going to give you a history lesson I'm not an expert on anything I'm just a guy who has some years of experience doing service work and that's really what I'm what I'm here to try to point you towards is there are opportunities for you to get involved if you care to and I'm going to try to give you a brief overview of what some of those are at the Area Convention this past weekend we gave a workshop on on just the CPC committee which took 45 minutes so by necessity I'm obviously not going to cover all this material more of this is just background material for you to read through it at your leisure but the general service office in New York is set up in such a way that they have certain desks to aert address certain needs of the fellowship one being archives literature public information cooperation with the professional Community Correctional Facilities treatment facilities you've probably heard all of these mentioned down through the years what we've attempted to do at the area level and what they do at at all area levels is is try to mirror what the general service office has set up in New York in in this more finite geographic region um again I I I don't want to belabor and turn this into a gso lesson I want to get down into the nitty-gritty and what actually we can get involved in here in area 44 so let's move ahead to general service area 44 and let me tell you a little bit about some of the standing committees how they're set up and what they do each standing committee has a has a chairperson I am currently the chairperson of the cooperation with the professional Community Committee part of my job is to see to it that each of our 41 districts has someone who who comes forward and joins our committee to see to it that our CPC work is done in their District um that holds true for all of these committees technically all these committees should have a chairperson and 41 District Representatives I can assure you there is a lot of unfilled positions open uh including CPC and district 18 if anybody like to get involved in that I'd love to to have some help let me tell you a little bit about what what some of these committees do and again you can read this I'm I'm going to give you just kind of a Top Line public information responds to requests from the general public and also reaches out to the general public trying to explain for example they'll get a call from a school a school wants someone to come in and speak to a student body about Alcoholics Anonymous because they they think that that would be helpful to the student body someone from the pi committee that who has who has been I don't want to say trained but they do go through uh an informal training to go in and speak to this group to tell them about Alcoholics Anonymous not to tell their personal stories but to tell them what AA is what it isn't what we do what we don't do to explain anonymity self-support uh to explain the different types of meetings and all that stuff you would be amazed at the lack of understanding of AA uh in in the world especially even with with student counselers they they just are clueless about who we are and how we work the public information committee also works with idrc departments where they go in where they people have gotten DWIs and now they have to go to special classes part of that that special class is for people from AA to come in and say we're not here to tell you that you're alcoholic but if you think you have a drinking problem and you would like to pursue recovery through the channels of Alcoholics Anonymous let us tell you what we are and how you can find us and what to expect um there are public service announcements that are are placed on the radio different areas do different things um depending on the makeup of of any committee at a given time depending on the skills the initiatives the interest of the members different things get done at one point in area 44 our PI committee had bus cards printed up and started putting them in in uh New Jersey Transit buses and they basically said got a drinking problem want to stop we can help and then it had the AA 800 number at the general service office um the pi committee goes around to libraries the most frequently stolen book from any library is the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous no one wants to check out they'd rather put it under their coat and walk out with it um but the pi committee does things like place the big book in in libraries um the CPC committee is very similar to Pi in terms of what they're trying to do they're trying to educate uh a certain audience about what AA is that audience happens to be professionals we talk to doctors lawyers judges probation officers nurses um clergy uh counselors of all different types um you again would be amazed um people they have no idea absolutely no idea what what AA is you say well well go to AA they got a drinking problem go to AA if you said well what what is AA what will they do where will they do it how how do we do it when do we do it they don't know they they they don't know I shouldn't say most of them don't know anything and and the rest know very very little it's shocking and these are people who claim to be alcoholism counselors uh we run into them all the time um the CPC committee attends on a fairly regular basis maybe six seven times a year we go down to Atlantic City in cooperation with our our area in South Jersey area 45 and we attend conventions of principles and and superintendents um Catholic educ ERS uh drug court professionals um there's a whole wide variety of different conferences held by professional organizations and we're invited to come in and set up an information table and simply be available to answer questions about Alcoholics Anonymous again it's through those venues where where we just we're ask questions and we say and you're a what and you and you don't you don't you never heard this before it also creates a lot of opportunities at a smaller local level that you know you find that um uh in Mars and Sussex County there is a drug court program and through our participation at a conference down in Somerset uh a month or two ago we got an invitation to come up to Morris County and meet with the drug court judge and um the drug court administrator and the prosecutor were curious about AA meetings and how they worked and said could we actually go to an AA meeting we said absolutely yes you can we have a program for escorting profession to to meetings we've actually written guidelines to give to our committee members to help them I mean because taking even if you're taking to an open meeting if they come in with a tape recorder and and and they're writing and taking notes through the whole meeting they're going to unnerve some members of Alcoholics Anonymous so we have some guidelines that we give people escorting professionals to meetings that says meet them before the meeting explain the meeting protocol explain that they do not share they simply introduce themselves hi my name is John and I'm visiting don't take notes don't ask questions don't put money in the basket we're self-supporting we don't want your money um and uh it's it's a program that's been working out very well but again that participation in that conference led to this contact at a more local level and now we're pursuing that and um we have more opportunities than we have people to to to fulfill them so again the these are all opportunities to help carry the message because that professional who understands Alcoholics Anonymous better is I think better equipped to take the prospective AA member and say look I think you should go to AA and this is what AA can do for you and this is what you'll find when you get there and I have a phone number and I know about a website I don't know if you know but our area has a website uh NN Northern nnj norn New Jersey aa.org you can go on that thing hit meeting finder put in a town hit search it'll give you every single meeting in that town Sunday through Saturday the time the place you can even add in a photograph of your of your meeting location directions to your meeting again this has to be supplied by the group but it's it's a really really wonderful website and we spent a lot of time trying to push these professionals to that website because they what they always used to ask for is meeting books you got any meeting books whether it was the treatment facilities committee the correctional facilities committee all these people wanted meeting books to give to their patients prospects inmates whatever on their release they know that well once we're done with them we got to give them to you and we don't know how to get you go on to the website and you can get a complete list of all the meetings and in any zip code you want or any town you want it's really a it's a a wonderful job done by our website committee again more volunteers more service opportunity uh the treatment facilities committee I I participated and chaired this committee a number of years ago During the period of time when when um Everybody remembers the the 28 day programs I mean we knew people who said yeah I've been to 14 28 day programs um until the insurance companies wised up and said you know what you get one shot at this you get it or you don't get it but we're not going to just keep sending you back to to you know for treatment but they built up treatment facilities they started putting one on every corner um back in the I want to say ' 70s 80s and then that changed and they started folding up and they were getting few and far between um and they are fewer uh even now but at that point they were going through that transition and our job as a committee was to reach out to these treatment facilities and the big issue then was they had substance abuse programs in the treatment facilities and they were taking everybody and saying go to AA and we were saying well that's fine but as long as they have a drinking problem and a desire to stop if they're not alcoholics you understand that they can't become members of AA uh and that they shouldn't be attending closed meetings and we don't say that Bill Wilson said that um and and that's that's kind of in our literature our conference approved literature and they were saying well but a drug is a drug is a drug I mean it's all the same it's all about the feelings and we said you know that that may be true in the in the context of your treatment program here in this facil but it's not true based on on aa's position on that now we as individuals may have different opinions and I'm not here to arouse any you know unhappy feelings but um read your AA literature and and it's pretty clear U as to what it says and what our position uh as a fellowship is on that um if you don't have I don't want to I've already said that anyway that was a big issue with the treatment facilities and we we spent a lot of time trying to make that clear to them they did not want to hear it and um but we we can't enforce it we just we just inform uh we started a lot of meetings in treatment facilities um facilities staff cutbacks we can't give as many programs we you know we can't fill our our day quite the way we used to be able to do we don't have the van to take them out to the meetings the way we used to take them out could you bring some meetings in to us and we started setting up meetings and Facilities my responsibilities initially were just here in district 18 I talked to Bonnie Bray the VA Overlook hospital had an outpatient program then and and now there was another treatment program in Summit there was one down in in planfield that mberg hospital that I got involved with and of course there was Fair Oaks at the time and all these facilities wanted to know about AA how to we we had a a bridge the gap program which we had started where we started to build a list of it was like 12-step contacts but there were people who were willing to reach out to people being discharged from a treatment facility meet them when they arrived in their Hometown and escort them to the nearest AA meeting and introduce them to AA members and help them get a big book and a meeting book and a sponsor and all that kind of good stuff and it was a very effective program uh it remains a very effective program but it uh required a lot of organization and um it was just one one more of the things that that that committee did um again the focus primarily on getting into the facility making the facility aware of of AA and and the opportunities that we had to to cooperate with them and then ultimately trying to help their patients who we saw as U at the very least prospective AA members um Correctional Facilities committee again when I was well way back when when I got involved in service I was the booker for the Pleasant Valley group that meets Thursday nights in in uh Pleasant Valley Park it was a group that um only had speakers come in once a month but they wanted to speak outside a lot so we were booking a lot of jails and uh a lot of rehabs but but a lot of jails and um I really enjoyed those commitments and I I don't I can't tell tell you why I was never um I was never really arrested I was never really spent a night in jail but I really liked going into those facilities and talking to those guys actually I went down to the Edna Mayhan facility which was women one night that was an interesting hey cutie hey cutie come on over here what a night I felt like a piece of meat but um speaking in uh in in jails or setting up and organizing meetings in jails and prisons state prisons County jails um is is really it's a it's a tough tough job we have some really good people at the at the area level who've been chairing this committee for a while who have done a great job of making Headway with the state what we're trying to do is is organize all the jails and all the prisons to have one screening criteria that you can go through and if I'm screened to go into this facility I can I can automatically go into that facility that I get some sort of state issued ID card which I can Flash at any one of these facilities and go in as a An approved AA member to lead a meeting it's been very hard but we've actually got AA members who have tackled this and and and are still working towards trying to have this um have this done um with the objective being I mean you know the statistics I'm not here like I said I'm not an expert so I'm not going to quote statistics but you know a lot of the guys who were in jail are in jail because they they were drunk uh drunk committing crimes drunk buying selling drugs um it's just was a big big part of their their problem there's a big need for AA in prisons um they also have a a letter writing campaign where you can correspond with a guy in jail which is a pretty neat thing to do you don't have to give them your home address you don't have to say yeah I live at 95 Highland Avenue come on by cuz I work all day and as soon as you get out you can take all my stuff you give them the group's p. box or or you give them a you can give them another po. box but you can set up a correspondence with a with a a guy who is an AA member he may be Behind the Walls but he's an AA member and correspond with this guy and give him give him something to look forward to a lot of these guys have nobody um their families have abandoned them um they're really alone in the world and uh some of them very serious about recovery there's the jail box you've all probably heard or seen of jail boxes jail boxes are really easy to create all you got to do is put a piece of paper on a box and say this is a jail box and they collect money they collect soft cover literature Old Co copies of the grape vine anything that you that they can gather up and take into these prisons and distribute to these guys I mean a 10-year-old copy of the grape vine is is good reading I mean it's uh it's really worthwhile the treatment fac or the correctional facilities committee was one of the few committees a few years ago that was almost self-supporting through their own um for the contributions that they raised through the jail boox at one point the the treat the correction facilities committee I think raised almost $30,000 through jailbox contributions accordingly they needed to take no money from the area treasury which is your donations to support their activities they were they were taking massive amounts of of uh soft cover literature into prisons and they were doing a great job Mike P was the chairman at the time he was just doing a great job and the guys following his footsteps have have done an equally good job the literature committee I always see these guys at Area events they'll be at area assemblies you'll see them if you go to Bookers uh you'll see them at days of sharing in different districts if if you go to those and they're basically they literally carry the message like I said I say I call them the hardest working people in AA they carry boxes and boxes and boxes of soft and hard cover literature to all these events they get up at the crack of dawn they load up Vans and cars and trucks and they drive in Caravans and they get there before any of the rest of us arrive and they set up tables and they set up all this literature and it's just their and they sell it you know for for whatever your individual or your group needs are um they always need people now is that glamorous is that something that that I want to do not particularly but people every year volunteer to to chair this committee and work on this committee and I always go out of my way at the conventions and whatnot to walk in and shake their hand and thank them for the work they do because it's just miserable heavy it's like being a mover you know it's it's just like you you've decided I'm going to be a mover for AA and just pick up boxes and carry him here and then pack them back up and put them in the car and drive them someplace else but they're a great committee and they make this literature available to us um they're a wonderful group of people grap Vine committee people do the same thing um primarily their their job is to is to make grape vine materials the there are calendars uh there are the the slogans there are tapes and CDs and um just all kinds of wonderful grap Vine materials there's a separate catalog I don't know if you've ever seen it but there's a grapevine catalog like the literature catalog just filled with Nifty AA stuff and it's not drunk junk it's not coffee mugs and stuff it's it's um it's good conference approved stuff um The Archives committee again what what the people are doing at our area level is very similar to what they're doing in in the general service office of New York they're they're trying to document our history um in case I mean Bill where did the big book get written where was the big book written yeah big book written was written in in in New Jersey u a lot of the earliest meetings were here in New Jersey um the oldest meeting other than akan was here in New Jersey wasn't it name mon Clair there are a lot of Old-Timers in area 44 who who sat in meetings with Bill Wilson a lot of these people they've tried to get get to an interview and have them at least U give some oral history uh on on tape of what they remember about the groups and who started this group and this group moved from there into here and that may not interest some of you but there are people like Bill I think who have a passion for for knowing something about the the the history of AA in the country and and more specifically in in New Jersey um if you've been to any of the conventions you've seen the the beautiful displays they put these things up on easel of like the Saturday Evening Post articles and just um invitations to AA dances from 1940 and in West Orange and just great stuff um they work very closely with the Intergroup office again you have to have a pension for this type of work I mean obviously they're looking for people if you if you're like me and you don't mind going out and sitting across from a professional and talking to them about AA CPC works great for you if you'd rather sit in the background and and touch old things and preserve them and you know you like dealing with non acid papers and you know preserving stuff and and sitting and recording oldtimers and documenting things archives is is is right up your alley um these are the standing committees these are the the Committees that pretty much mirror what's going on in the general service office in the New York as a as a CPC chair I could call New York and say I need to talk to Eva Sanchez she's the CPC person in New York I've got a question about something going on in my area um all these people have counterparts in New York that they can talk to to get shared experience there are however special committees um if any how many people went to the convention last weekend any some good well the rest of you missed a really great convention try going next year you might you might really enjoy it um but we have a whole Committee of people who volunteer to organize and put on this event uh they that committee breaks down into subcommittees they have Hospitality they have the speaker the alathon the the big book Marathon they have all the topic workshops there just a lot of details that uh that have to be organized and people to organize them they try to make opportunities available to each of the 41 districts they say you know we we've got an alathon going on for this many hours we need one representative from each district to cover each of these hours they throw that out to the gsrs and say go back to your districts and and find some people who want to come and share these these alathon U meetings um logistically there's a lot of work they're they'll do a little wrap-up meeting probably in a week um from this this year's past convention and immediately start planning next year's convention they've got to negotiate cont contracts with the hotels and how much coffee are we going to get and how many rooms are we going to get and what what are we paying so if you're a meeting planner if if you if you've done any kind of travel planning or or anything like that then you have an aptitude and a skill that would translate very nicely to helping the convention committee and fac helping to facilitate this wonderful event each year for the rest of the fellowship films committee there just a little guy who sits he's got a box full of films and he's got a projector and if your group would like to watch I we did this one year years ago uh in Myersville we were a Friday night speaker meeting and we didn't have a speaker lined up for this one particular night and I said you know there's a film and I think it was called like Bill's own story or something like that and uh it was actually a a a a film of Bill telling his story you know he sitting out he's at stepping stones and he's sitting outside and he's sitting out there with Lois and it starts getting a little chilly and tells Lois to go in and put a pot of coffee on and the next thing he's reconvening and he's sitting there at his kitchen table and Bill is telling his story and it's almost Verbatim what you read in his story in in the big book but there's the guy the the actual guy on film telling you his story we brought in a big television set we put it up on a stand in the front of the room and instead of having a speaker that night we had Bill Wilson come in and tell his story and it was a neat thing to do we got that film through the films committee um there are a lot of other good films and if you haven't se seen them um just a thought or if you want to get involved in going around I was when I was in fourth grade I was a projectionist I was on the AV committee and I got to go around to all the other classrooms and got me out of regular classes because I knew how to thread the film through the projector and I got to go around and show movies for all the other kids when they had a movie scheduled and I enjoyed that and I think I might still enjoy that maybe one of these days I'll end up on the film committee again the finance committee these again if you're an accountant you'd like to help out AA get on that finance committee man we need somebody to keep that budget balanced we need somebody to keep an eye on the money we actually have some CDs we have some money invested um essentially that's what they do they help plan the area budget they get budgets submitted by all the standing committees all the special committees we all have to prepare budgets at the beginning of the year and say look I think I'm going to spend 1,500 bucks okay okay on what and we have to document that and they say okay and they approve that and they come in and they submit a uh a prospective budget which then has to be Revis or um reviewed and approved by an area assembly but the finance committee is responsible for making sure that that we don't run out of money and a couple of years ago we almost did we had a prudent Reserve I think it was $10,000 and we had eroded that prudent Reserve down to about $3,000 every year our expenses were exceeding our donations and we just kept taking the money out of the prudent Reserve until some people finally threw up their hands and said look we got to get more money from the fellowship or we have to cut back on the services we're providing if the fellowship is telling us by virtue of not giving us money that they don't feel that the work we're doing isn't vital then we stopped doing the work I mean you you can speak with your pocketbook you know but the money started coming back in The Prudent Reserve I think has almost been completely restored I know ingroup's budget is very solid and we're basically we're taking care of our own we're doing the right thing but the finance committee are the people who who keep an eye on that like I said if if that interests you that's a committee you could get involved with newsletter there's one guy Bill L actually he may have a little bit of help but Bill L has been doing this newsletter single-handedly for as long as I've been coming around uh he has a graphics design business but uh what he does is he solicits articles from all the standing committee chairs we'd like to know what what's going on in treatment what's going on in Corrections what's going on in pi he goes to all the area officers and asks them for contributions any goes any one of you anyone sitting here tonight can write an article and submit it to this day um on any topic that that you please relative to recovery or or your experience in AA uh but Bill is responsible for pulling all that information together doing the layout getting it to the printer and basically turning out a beautiful very informed of an interesting newsletter every quarter and like I said this guy's been doing this for years and years it used to be in a different format and Bill as as a as a trusted servant and a custodian of the money he was being given came back to us at one point and said I have a proposal I want to put this thing in tabloid format which is basically changing the size and I want to print it on newsprint paper and what ultimately we can do is we can fold this thing down to this big uh that it'll open up the size of a newspaper and it'll C cost you know half of what it cost to do it the way we're printing it the way we're printing it now and um you got to love a guy who comes up with ideas like that and it was readily approved but uh this newsletter needs help people who can write people who can edit people who don't mind doing computer um you it's it's laying it's it's working with word man it's not a it's not a big deal he gives you a measure and says I got this much space to fill could you just proof this spell check it for me and and lay it out for me and email it to me he would love that kind of help and support that is of any interest to you there's an opportunity remote communities I don't know too much about um other than they're reaching out to we have a Polish speaking uh Community uh there are a couple of Polish speaking meetings there was an entire Spanish-speaking District which is comprised of all the Spanish speaking meetings it's not a geographic District it's it's more of a Cultural District but um we have people in nursing homes we're finding that a lot of people um I'm thinking of a friend of mine's father the wife died the father was alone in the house 70 some odd years old wasn't eating right wasn't taking care of himself and was starting to drink always drank a little bit but now he was drinking more and more and more and more and more they finally had to get him out of the house and get him in institutionalized because he was drinking himself to death he was an alcoholic and in this in this nursing home it would have been nice if somebody could have brought him a meeting he he and the people in that nursing home constituted a remote Community they can't come out to us they can't come to meetings they're not really treatment they're not Corrections they're sort of like this remote little specialized community that maybe needed some of our attention so we've got this committee put together it's sort of a relatively new committee that's trying to to look around and say are there some people handicapped people people who are housebound people you know accessibility became a big issue are all our meetings truly accessible you know can you get in and out of a meeting I'm a service sponsor for a guy out in district 21 out in the Lambertville this kid TJ and uh he's in a wheelchair and has always been in a wheelchair and he claims that he's never gone to a meeting where accessibility has ever been a problem but there's always been a couple of guys who would pick up up and carry them in and carry them out and it's just not an issue but uh anyway that's rural communities maps and boundaries I can't even tell you too much about that other than periodically a district like ours that I mean if you go back to our district map we go from Summit to Pottersville and we're kind of this long thin district and it's very hard to get people from Summit and people from Pottersville together even when you put the the district meeting kind of in Middle Ground in Berkeley Heights they they just they're they're just too widely uh dispersed and there has been some thought to maybe redistricting taking Berkeley Heights New Providence and Summit and making that one district and taking everything west of there from like Long Hill Township Bernard Township burnard everything west of there and making in another District this maps and boundaries committee would be the committee you'd have to go to so that they could study how many groups are actually in that district and where are the groups and how could we break this up so that that would be a you know a nice balance of groups in the two districts and they would you'd have to get all kinds of approvals from them to do it but that's what they do and maintain these beautiful maps that I stuck in in the early part of this the website committee again just go on the website and look at it www.nnjaa.org take a look at it it's gorgeous these guys did a really nice job I'm sort of I have an advertising agency and and and I see all the time and I'm really proud of the website that these guys put together for us in terms of its functionality it's not bad looking but boy there's a ton of information on there it's really really useful and these are just people who who were I don't want to call them uh Geeks you know what I mean but they were they you know what I mean they were like tech people they were they were HTML Savvy and and they they knew how to write code and they they understood web Dynamics and Web building and navigational structure and and they they got together and they said look if the if the area wants a website we have some skill and we'd be willing to apply that skill to creating this website as I said the the the the meeting finder that search capability for people in in my area like CPC it's just it's a wonderful wonderful tool and of course we had to go to Intergroup to say Intergroup will it be all right if we take your meeting list and put it on this website we had to work cooperatively with them because the meeting list is not the property of general service it's the property of Intergroup which is sort of like a sister service entity in the same area but I'll explain that in a moment there's a mailing committee and that's just what they do they mail if you ever get a flyer in the mail saying there's going to be a workshop someplace in the area office the mailing committee has mailed it out and it's just guys who some of them maybe had postal experience maybe they didn't but they're guys who are willing if you can imagine to go down to the area office and take flyers and fold Flyers all night long and stuff them in envelopes you know just keep stuffing envelopes they get three four five people down there and that's what they do I mean it is the most mindless you know it's it's terrible work that they do but they volunteer to do it because it needs to be done these announcements need to get out and they say hey I I volunteer for the mailing committee and they sit there and they drink coffee and they chat and they have a great time and they get the work done and if that kind of thing appeals to you they're always looking for help um those are the standing committees and the special committees those all exist within area 44 but area 44 has to have a structure that those committees can sort of work within that structure starts with the groups the groups I mean this is in a kind of in a in a a pyramid with the groups individual AA members and the groups at at the top of the pyramid I was talking to my service sponsor today and I was saying John aren't there some guys from area 44 who have ascended to positions in the gso office in New York he said no there are none he said however there are three who have descended to the general service office in New York in other words the group his little reminder was the groups are at the top and gso is at the bottom because gso is only there to serve the needs of the groups we make all the decisions we vote we decide and the way we do that the person who carries the group's V voice down the line is the GSR the general service representative the general service representative attends a district meeting the district meeting for district 18 is chaired by and this is all going to get this is where I can see eyes are starting to glaze over but just try to hang with me here for another couple of minutes the GSR is is your representative he goes to the district meeting remember back district 18 there's a DCM a district Committee Member he is in charge of the district meeting in district 18 he he's simply there to facilitate all the gsrs from all the groups getting together and talking about the issues if you don't have a GSR and he's not going to the district meeting nobody knows what you guys think the voice of this group is not being heard and if that GSR isn't going to area assemblies and finding out what New York is is planning and deciding and asking asking us to vote on and he's not coming back and telling you about that then you you have absolutely no input on any decisions being made in Alcoholics Anonymous those decisions are being made without you um that would kind of bother me if if I thought that was going on in my home group I I want somebody and and if it has to be it'll be me I I'll go and find out what's going on I I want us to have some input on this fourth edition of The Big Book they're taking stories out what stories have they taken out who's deciding they're taking them out they're going to pick new stories who's picking the new stories I want to know about this kind of stuff I want to have some input on that and you can if you've got a GSR the dcms then go to this area committee the area committee is where all the dcms meet to discuss what's going on in the area you can imagine it's Chris last year said that Mike P described this as like you have towns States and the states make up a country the district is the town the state is the area and the areas collectively are the country the dcms kind of meet at the state level um they all get together and say this is what's going on in my district well this is what's going on in my district this is what my district thinks this is what my district they 41 of these guys they get together with all the standing committee chairs and special committee chairs and they basically vote on whatever is issues are being brought up by New York or being brought up at the area level um some of this stuff is voting on whether we should get a new copy machine or not I mean it's it's deadly boring send you out of there screaming Chris would never last a minute Chris would get an automatic weapon and and uh call an early adjournment but uh if we don't have a copy machine can't make copies if we can't make copies we can't conduct business so we better figure out what are we doing about the goddamn copy machine um there are much more important decisions being made like every year our delegate the delegate is the one person elected by the dcms in other words the gsrs elect the DCM the dcms elect the delegate and the delegate goes to the general service conference in New York he is the one guy who represents all of Northern New Jersey the dcms B basically hear from the gsrs what the gsrs think about the general service conference agenda items they're topics should we do another addition of the big book if we're going to do it should we do it now um what's changing are we are we going I don't know if you know the fourth edition had some reference in the forward about online meetings versus face-to-face meetings it got in print it got in print and raised a Ruckus In The Fellowship people started writing in from all over the place saying who the hell put that in there about they're essentially the same except in format they're not the same at all not only is the format different they're they're different in every way that's going to be changed again now for the for the next printing of of the fourth edition you'll see that change so hang on to those first printings because it may not be in the in in the second or third printing um but those decisions we decide that we decide whether that's going to get changed or not by talking to our groups carrying our voice to the district meeting telling the DCM and the DCM tells the delegate and the delegate says woo area 44 wants that change when I go to the general service conference I'm going to tell them to change it you can read this stuff I I can't can't get into too much more we're about out of time Intergroup is just another part of the service structure in area 44 they're not connected to general service general service is the name of something it's not a it's not a a u it's it is a proper name for this organization the general service office in area 44 Intergroup is another formal organization their responsibility is answering the phones during the day putting the meeting book together uh admitting new groups into the area uh if you start a meeting and you want to be in the meeting book you generally have to go down and present yourselves to Intergroup did you do that you must have done something something like that somebody did we threaten you threatened them generally someone has to go down and say hi I'm from the XYZ group and we'd like to be included in the meeting book and they kind of check you out and they give you approval and and put you in but uh each group should also have an Intergroup delegate it's someone who goes to the Intergroup meeting each month and uh and checks out what the issues are at Intergroup there are things that come up like there's this group down in Tom's River and they won't let anybody come to the meeting who says they're an alcoholic and a drug addict if you say drug addict they throw you out even if you say you're alcoholic can they stay in the meeting book well they have to discuss this they have to vote on this and they do they're other less uh controversial issues that they deal with but that's basically what ingroup's about the one neat thing that you could do with ingroup if you were interested other than to have a delegate down there representing your group is to get involved with Night Watch hitter group does answer the telephones Monday through Friday 9 to 5 but after 5:00 or on weekends what they do is they forward those phone calls can forward those phone calls to your house what you do is you get a number and I forget whether it's 12 I think for a weekend it may be 12 people it's again I almost gave you this information but thought I had too much here already but if you go on to the area website you can find out about night watch and I think you need 12 group members to say yes we'll take night watch for a week and what it is is at 6:00 they forward the phone calls to whatever numbers you've given them you give them a list of phone numbers John's taking the calls Tuesday night from 6: to midnight and an is taking them from Midnight to 6 a.m.

and you just give them those phone numbers and they will automatically program that phone and that phone will ring at your house and you pick up the phone and answer it hi this is John and Alcoholics Anonymous how can I help you and you're going to talk to wet drums if that is of interest to you um but Night Watch is is a really cool thing and there are groups that do this regularly they'll do it at least once a quarter they'll sign up to do this um again all the details of night watcher are on the area website um the last page of this the 12 Concepts and if you read them you'll just find out this is this is really what kind of how we conduct our business this is how we behave this is kind of as the as the 12 Steps guide your personal recovery and the 12 traditions guide your contact conduct as a group the 12 Concepts uh show us how we're supposed to behave as we go ahead and and do this service work humility is the key word humility is the key word none of this I'm doing for myself all of this I'm doing for someone else um I started to say years ago that when I got involved in service and I found out what the Traditions were actually saying I started to edit my story when I told it I would tell you all about the drugs that I sold and all the drugs that I used and I went on a great length about that because it was one of the more glamorous parts of my story until I got involved in service and I realized that um that that really wasn't in my opinion um what I was supposed to be doing that it wasn't good for it perceptually it was not good for people to believe that we were here to help people with drug problems um so I edited that out and what I used to say to people was I've started to submit myself to the discipline that I see imposed suggested by the the 12 traditions I do the same with the 12 Concepts um it really at every step tells me to just behave myself listen to other people let the guy let the little guy have the last word you know I've seen it happen at area assemblies where everybody's voted one way we we're all going to like not do this we've all voted we're not going to do that and one guy in the back of the room who's in the minority opinion raises his hand and they say all right minority opinion actually gets to speak last the one guy in the room who's voting yes and the rest of us have all voted no he gets to to speak last and he stands up and says something and and introduces the thought that the rest of us had not previously considered and they'll say has that changed anyone's vote and you see all these hands go up and the whole thing swings the other way because one quiet sensible guy who presented a thought and an idea that no one else had previously considered lays it out and we all go he's right he's right and it's a beautiful thing to see it happen um keep an open mind about this stuff I didn't expect anybody was going to run up here tonight and say oh please sign me up for this commitment or that commitment but keep an open mind about it uh there are a lot of opportunities there's a lot of need and um I have to tell you that I have tried to get extricate myself from this service work on on two occasions in the last couple of years and I found that I I just I can't do it um I feel U like something's really missing from my my life something's Miss ing from my program when I'm not doing some kind of service work um it's one of those things that you say oh I really don't want to do that and then you do it and you say why did I deprive myself of the opportunity to to have something like this in my life all this time I think that's it any questions sorry this was this is a really dry topic um there's no other way to put it out there um but if you get a little free time throw this little hand out in the bathroom and you know maybe give it a read bit by bit over the next couple of weeks and I guess we have a go ahead Ron I ask a question um I be like it's really um for our group conscience to the side but could you give us some guidance on um I think actually they talked about a little bit in small committee but um in terms of uh donations terms of contributions I guess the right back to gso group is there is there any suggestions you have in terms of like how we should be allocating money or what might be a good way for us to use that money yeah there's you mentioned that there's some funding going on there's a pamphlet um called self-support it's a green and white service pamphlet and it and it gives you pie charts which suggest different formulas for donating to gso in New York general service area 44 which I'm part of it Group which is also here in area 44 um you could also for that matter donate to will service but I I don't know anybody who does it's really basically those three entities gso area 44 and Intergroup uh you could also donate to the district but quite frankly i' say the district at the moment doesn't need the money wouldn't know what to do with it if they got it a little bit of money is is helpful because we have rent to pay for the district meeting but um it's basically those three entities a lot of groups do a third a third and a third it's where I perceive greater need in in area 44 I know inter groups pretty solvent area 44 could always use the money uh gso could always use the money um you know they they have an awful lot to do they have a lot of Staff salaried employees in New York um about could have by yeah absolutely absolutely the second thing I was ask in terms of these committees are the Committees formed of gsrs or if we have someone in our group wants to do just be a part of the committee or does he have to be a GSR it's a good question when I be when I took my first GSR position when I first got started in this after about a year I became introduced to the treatment facilities committee my home group Myersville had honesty house coming to it two nights a week and I was booking for uh Pleasant Valley where I was doing a lot of treatment facility speaking I was kind of comfortable with that environment and those people uh and so I I um got interested in the treatment police committee and I went to an area um convention where the treatment facilities committee was doing a workshop I went in and listened to the workshop and I said you know what I think I'd like to get involved in this committee but I'm a GSR can I do both and they said sure you can do both as long as you have the time yeah you can do both so I got involved for one year there was an overlap i' been GSR for a year and I was going to be a GSR for two and the treatment commitment in district 18 was two years so I had a one-year overlap where I did both then I just did treatment for one additional year at which point the guy who was chairing that committee who became my service sponsor because they told me I needed one and I admired this guy he asked me to step up and and chair the treatment committee for the area and and so I did that but I I I did both for a Time wants to so okay so that's form but if somebody wants to just be a part of the committee they could have to be a g they don't have to do anything other than to show up and indicate their interest now people will say there are qualifications you know oh you should be sober for two years you should have done this you should have done that and the truth is yeah you should we we don't want you to be at at area committee meetings or or at or uh standing committee meetings when you really need to be working on your sobriety I mean if your sobriety is is um shaky at best you should be working on on your recovery but if if you're comfortable if you've if you've done your step work if you have some familiarity with the traditions and you're interested in doing something more for the fellowship if if you're at a point where you're ready to give back which is what I thought this whole you know recovery to or surrender to to service was about when you when you reach that point where you say you know what I feel pretty good I'm going to be okay I've done my step work and and I'm I'm okay and I'm and I'm ready to to help somebody else and I can do that at my group level by helping newcomers I've got people I can take through the work but I could also get involved in some of these committees and and maybe have have an impact that way as well so all you have to do is step up and indicate an interest there's no there's no screening process what ultimately we would do if you showed up at the CPC committee and said I'm from district 18 and I want to work on this committee we'd say great we'd love to have you now we want you to go back and see Terry your DCM and let him know that you're going to represent his district on our committee and not only are you going to have to come to our committee meetings but occasionally you should go to your district meeting and Report into your gsrs as to what you're doing in their District so they can tell their groups like gee did you know Rob sent letters out to all the churches in district 18 two of them asked them to come in and speak because they had people in their parishes who had drinking problems one of them offered meeting space because there were no AA meetings there and one of them asked for a catalog so they could order some films that they could show to a youth group in their church I mean you might be interested in knowing that you might not be but that's that when I was doing District work that's exactly what what happened to me I sent a letter out and got those kind of responses just the clergy there are a lot of other audiences for me to talk to in terms of the Professionals in this District I've had to sort of forego my District responsibilities because I I ended up as chairman of the committee so I'm I'm not active at the district level now but anybody can can get involved I mean we're just we're just looking for interested people at this point it's fun stuff too Bill you've been on committees haven't you convention did you have fun this year yeah there was a guy there was a guy at the when I when I went into the convention Friday night and I signed up um you know I signed in you know as an AA member in btle of a bond paid my my 18 bucks and um and as this guy handed me my name tag I think he said my name's Mike welcome but he I mean he made it a real point to say hi there my name's Mike welcome and I said thanks Mike my name's Rob and it's a pleasure to be here he was just like boy I love this AA stuff and these AA people you know it's just really good well anyway I I hope some of you will give some thought to this at the appropriate time uh again anybody can reach me through Chris or through Ron or or through Bill uh I'm around and I could steer you to I mean any number of opportunities and explain more of these opportunities in Greater depth uh if you're interested thanks thank you for listening to sober Sunrise if you enjoyed today's episode please give it a thumbs up as it will help share the message until next time have a great day