I was recently reminiscing with a friend from Boston. We were talking about “the good old days’ of our recovery over twenty years ago in the Boston area. Before I go on let me explain that I believe that the spirit of our program is as strong today as it was twenty, forty or sixty years ago. This piece is not a call for a return to the old ways but is instead a reminder of some very good times.
In the Boston area almost all of the meetings in the late seventies were speakers meetings. They were an hour and a half long and usually consisted of three speakers who shared their experience, strength and hope. Newcomers were told to sit up front and listen. There were few discussion meetings and most were step meetings. Newcomers were not encouraged to share during the meeting but told to discuss questions and problems with their sponsors after the meeting. Some old timers claimed that people who shared in the first year of sobriety “were only spreading the disease”.
We were encouraged to join a home a group and get active. Typically one’s home group had a weekly meeting where groups from other towns would come in and “put on a meeting”. These were called “commitments” and for every group that came to us we would go to them and put on a return commitment. Sometimes an active group would do two or three commitments a week.
The commitments were where I learned about the fellowship of the program. We would all meet at a central location and car pool to the town where we were to speak. Sometimes we would go out to dinner before the meeting or else stop for coffee and ice cream after the meeting. There was more program discussed in the comings and goings than during most of the meetings. It was here that I developed the “support system” that people talk about today. In the early days it was difficult for me to grasp the steps and the literature and all the deeper aspects of the program but the fellowship kept me coming to meetings.
We had some interesting names for meetings. Some groups would serve donuts and we’d call it the “donut” meeting. Another group always had cookies and was the Friday night “homemade cookie meeting”. In our area we had the Saturday night “hot dog meeting” where the group cooked hot dogs every week. There was also a “popcorn meeting”.
People had interesting names as well. The use of first names only led to many colorful descriptive adjectives and qualifiers. Bashful Bob, Leo the Baker, Crazy John, Don the Indian, Fred the Barber, Humble Jack, were some that I remember. My favorite all time was Four-Fifteen Pete who used to open his remarks at meetings by saying that he had gotten sober at four-fifteen in the morning of such and such a date. The name “Four-Fifteen” stuck and he still has this nickname today.
We share a rich tradition in our program. Our guidelines and principles are clear but the ways we practice the program vary greatly over the years and geography of our program. If you would like to share some of your program nostalgia write it down and send it in. If there is enough interest we can make this a regular feature.