By Claire A.
I went to Unity Day this year. I wanted to go, and I didn’t really want to go, but I had committed to it. My spouse was getting ready to go to a festival and my kid was going to have a lazy day at home. I wanted to relax too. I didn’t know how to find the meeting. I didn’t know whether I was going to drive or take MUNI. I didn’t know who would be there. It was hot. I didn’t know if someone would be appalled if I wore shorts to a church. My driver’s license had expired, and the new one hadn’t arrived yet. My alcoholic brain, as usual, was finding a million reasons to not do the very thing that would help me stay comfortably sober.
AA has taught me to breathe, and to suit up and show up. I didn’t wear shorts, but I did dress comfortably. I printed out my new temporary license. I drove up Geary, fearfully swearing at the traffic, because even though I am afraid of going to Unity Day, I damn well know how you should be driving.
There were dozens of available parking spots underneath the church and my car would stay blessedly cool all day. As I walked toward the church, I knew I was in the right place when I saw a man wearing a shirt with “Resentment #1” printed across the back. My people!
Old friends and new were finding each other in the basement of the church, enjoying a cup of coffee and organizing themselves for a day of work and fun. I heard laughter and I saw folks hugging and shaking hands. My fear quite forgotten, I was soon joining in. People I had only ever seen in a Zoom meeting were popping up everywhere.
I joined a sharing session about trying to get more people into service, and my first thought was “good luck getting alcoholics to do anything they don’t want to do.” But I sat and listened, and I did hear some good ideas. I can’t remember any of them now, but my idea was to write this article and talk about how much I have gotten out of service. In fact, I have gotten so much out of service, I might have to do a serial column to get it all down on paper.
For this column, though, and because I only have space for about 100 more words, I want to talk about being an IGR (Intergroup Representative). AAsfmarin.org describes the job as “the connection between the members of your group and Intergroup” which sounds simple enough, but boy did it teach me. I learned to listen to what was important to my group rather than assuming I knew or stressing out because I didn’t know. I worked through my fear of making announcements. I also learned to relax and trust my own judgement. There is an enormous amount of information available about all the good stuff AAs are doing in SF. Slowly, I learned I could choose what I thought would be of most interest to my meeting, and keep my announcements brief. Above all, I felt the satisfaction of doing a tiny part to keep our program humming in SF, and to make sure the hand of AA will always be there.
If you’ve read this far, thank you. I hope you’ll consider being an IGR. You can find out more at www.aasfmarin.org. Your group probably needs an IGR. And if you serve, I’ll see you at the monthly Intergroup meeting!