The third Asia-Pacific Unity conference took place on Sunday April 25, 2021. The real purpose of this one-day conference is carrying the message and strengthening small groups through unity with others.
Our Hungarian fellowship was established in September 2019 on the closing day of the SA conference held in Budapest. The determination and enthusiasm that set us on the road is still with us to this day.
Dear Members of SA, Have you heard of the SA Board of Trustees? Do you have any idea what service the Trustees provide our fellowship? Have you ever thought that you might be a candidate to serve as a Trustee? Whatever your answers to these questions, we invite you to read on and learn more about this particular service opportunity.
In 2005, my AA sponsor told me: “I found the solution for you, SA has arrived in Venezuela.” He put me in contact with a member who had several copies of the White Book. I read it in one sitting, from beginning to end, and totally identified.
When I came into the program about ten years ago, there wasn’t much Persian-translated SA literature. We didn’t have any translation of the SA White Book yet. This led to an imperfect understanding of the Sobriety Definition, which caused our fellowship to have loose or erroneous interpretations of it for many years.
The photo below was taken from a bluff overlooking the Turnagain Arm and the Chugach Mountain Range of Alaska. Let me share with you the story behind it.
This is what Step 4 is designed to achieve. The question “What was my part?” is not designed to blame the victim who has a resentment against a wrong that was done to them. The question goes to what part of me is broken that keeps this pain alive? How have I taken myself out of the land of the living because of this resentment?
Ironically, I spent the first nine months of my existence in a dark place, a sort of tunnel, sheltered from the light, from real life, as it were. Then, I was thrust into the light, into the real world. But, over time, I found this light blinding and painful. All I knew to do was to look for a dark place to escape back to, somewhere that made me feel better.
This year I celebrated five years of SA sobriety, one day at the time, one moment at a time, one hour at a time and so on ... This is a miracle that I have been blessed with. Could this have been possible before? No, it was not possible.
A woman in AA told me after she spoke in a meeting, quoting Chapter 5 in Alcoholics Anonymous, that “God could and would, if He were sought.” And that’s how I did it. By letting God do it. Because I couldn’t. But God could and would - and did. But I had to go to meetings to learn things like that. “Meetings, meetings, meetings, meetings, meetings ... ” That’s what they told me. “Just keep bringing the body.” (SA 158)
