Long Beach, CA

Very seldom in Essay have I seen contributions from any of the original groups in the Los Angeles area. The Long Beach meeting was one of the original three meetings in the Los Angeles area — along with the West Los Angeles and Alhambra — and has been through many changes in the past 7 or 8 years.

Within the past year there has been an upsurge in attendance, and there became a need to rent a second room at our location…about 3 months ago, an earlier meeting was started at the same location. This meeting came about because there were a lot of “early risers” who found it difficult to attend the regular 8 p.m. meetings.… The early meeting has a core group of 5-6 people, and has had as many as 12 in attendance. The 8 p.m. meeting is still going strong, and even after the introduction of the earlier meeting, the 8 p.m. group averages 20-25 a night.

A lot of this group can be attributed to our newcomer’s meeting, which is sandwiched between the two groups at 7:30 p.m. We average 3-5 newcomers a week, and it seems that most are staying. Also, there has been a marked improvement in the quality and quantity of recovery of the group: 1 regular member celebrated his 3rd year birthday a while ago, and we had 3 one-year cakes during the past few months. Also, many regular members are getting and maintaining increasing lengths of sobriety, with more than half a dozen exceeding 6 and 9 months.

Our group, in response to a need for more writing and sponsorship, has initiated a written First Step inventory, matched members up on a one-on-one basis, and provided time and privacy for sharing the Step. If this project works, and it seems to be, we will continue, with group conscience, of course, with other writing projects. We also sell a great deal of SA-approved literature, especially the White Book, and the 12&12. In order to learn more about working the Steps, the last Monday of the month we read from the 12&12.

It has been exciting for me to see all these developments, since I first became sober and started the SA recovery program at Long Beach over six years ago. It has been a real pleasure to share my experience, strength and hope with the newcomers as they come into the program for the first time. Even though my own recovery has been filled with ups and downs, I can honestly look the newcomers in the eye and tell them “keep coming back, it works!”