Today, “simple service” for me is simply giving back to others. There was a time when service meant serving me; pandering to my own selfish agenda, making a name for myself, etc. It’s taken me a lot of Step work and many inventories to be able to cut ego out of my motives for doing anything.

I live in a small town in North Central Idaho and for the past eighteen years I used to have only one meeting a week, and I had to travel 280 miles, round trip, to get to it; local AA meetings plugged the gaps in between. A year ago, I had the opportunity to take a meeting into a minimum security correctional facility in Cottonwood, Idaho. It was a fantastic learning experience.

Later, I got the sense that my Higher Power was drawing me thirty miles down river towards this other facility in the town of Orofino. A couple of guys were already running a different “S” meeting there for three years.

I was privileged to spend a couple of hours talking with these guys – it was their first face-to-face meeting with someone in recovery from outside of the prison and their joy and excitement was obvious. As we talked and shared our stories, we landed the idea of starting an SA meeting in the facility and to have it run in addition to the existing “S” meeting. It took patience to get it going, waiting for the prison chaplain and a teacher in the facility to do their advocating for us and get back to me.

Well, we were successful. SA is up and running in Orofino, one meeting a week. I do hope that this meeting and the growth of SA will serve as a platform in our State system for healing, freedom, and meaning for men seeking the message of SA and the hope that it brings.

And today, as a result of service, I have three meetings a week instead of only one.

In simple service,