Anonymity in Online and conference call meetings WELCOME

Anonymity in On-line and conference call meetings WELCOME!! AA in Regina Online If complete anonymity is a great concern for you, perhaps a one on one call or a call to our 12 th Step call list (phone 306 -545 -9300) 24/7 to speak be connected to someone on the list) would be a better option. By the very nature of on-line and conference call meetings, it becomes very difficult to ensure your complete anonymity. It is highly unlikely that your anonymity will be breached, but you need to be aware. · While the meeting host will respect your anonymity and will not record the meeting, we cannot guarantee that all users will not do so through a means aside from the conference software. · There is also a possibility that your name and/or device identity may be seen in the conference. Some safeguards you can take if your complete anonymity is a concern: · If you are using on-line conferencing software, leave your camera or video off. You can participate through audio only if that is your choice and the host should respect that. · If you are using on-line conferencing, ensure you hide your full name when you enter or rename yourself immediately after entering.

Video conferencing may be new to you. We have some etiquette tips suggested by group members that can help foster a comfortable and safe meeting for all members. These are suggestions only; there are no rules here. Zoom Video Conferencing Logistics • Please mute your microphone when not speaking. • Please keep motion to a minimum. Consider turning off your camera when moving around and please avoid moving backgrounds (eg. ceiling fans, car) and flickering or bright lights. • Please eat off camera. Consider turning off your camera when eating and please turn your mic off. • Consider using a headset and keeping your screen private from others in your vicinity so our shares and faces remain within the CPA fellowship. Anonymity is a foundation of our program. • Feel free to use the chat feature if you are not up for speaking. However, please be considerate of others. Using chat during a Zoom meeting is the same as having a side conversation with someone in a physical meeting. Please save announcements or sharing information on chat until the appropriate time. • Remember to confirm that you and anyone in the background is appropriately attired before you turn on your video.

WELCOME!! AA in Regina Online

Anonymity Statement Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions. Please respect this and treat in confidence who you see and what you hear.

Primary Purpose Statement • THIS IS A CLOSED MEETING OF ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS. In support of A. A. 's singleness of purpose, attendance at closed meetings is limited to persons who have a desire to stop drinking. If you think you have a problem with alcohol, you are welcome to attend this meeting. We ask that when discussing our problems, we confine ourselves to those problems as they relate to alcoholism

Chapter 5 – How It Works Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. There are such unfortunates. They are not at fault; they seem to have been born that way. They are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty. Their chances are less than average. There are those, too, who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders, but many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest. Our stories disclose in a general way what we used to be like, what happened, and what we are like now. If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it - then you are ready to take certain steps. At some of these we balked. We thought we could find an easier, softer way. But we could not. With all the earnestness at our command, we beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start. Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas and the result was nil until we let go absolutely. Remember that we deal with alcohol - cunning, baffling, powerful! Without help it is to much for us. But there is One who has all power - that One is God. May you find Him now! Half measures availed us nothing. We stood at the turning point. We asked His protection and care with complete abandon. Here are the steps we took, which are suggested as a program of recovery:

Step 1: We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable. Step 2: Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. Step 3: Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. Step 4: Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. Step 5: Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. The 12 Steps of AA Step 6: Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. Step 7: Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings. Step 8: Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. Step 9: Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. Step 10: Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it. Step 11: Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. Step 12: Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Many of us exclaimed "What an order! I can't go through with it. " Do not be discouraged. No one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles. We are not saints. The point is, that we are willing to grow along spiritual lines. The principles we have set down are guides to progress. We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection. How It Works (Continued) Our description of the alcoholic, the chapter to the agnostic, and our personal adventures before and after make clear three pertinent ideas: (a) That we were alcoholics and could not manage our own lives; (b) That probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism; (c) That God could and would if He were sought. Taken from Alcoholics Anonymous, chapter 5, pages 58 -60. With permission of A. A. World Services, Inc.

. . . AND NO MORE RESERVATIONS March 23 Daily Reflection We have seen the truth again and again: “Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic. ”. . . If we are planning to stop drinking, there must be no reservation of any kind, nor any lurking notion that someday we will be immune to alcohol. . To be gravely affected, one does not necessarily have to drink a long time nor take the quantities some of us have. This is particularly true of women. Potential female alcoholics often turn into the real thing and are gone beyond recall in a few years. — ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 33 These words are underlined in my book. They are true for men and women alcoholics. On many occasions I’ve turned to this page and reflected on this passage. I need never fool myself by recalling my sometimes differing drinking patterns, or by believing I am “cured. ” I like to think that, if sobriety is God’s gift to me, then my sober life is my gift to God. I hope God is as happy with His gift as I am with mine. From the book Daily Reflections Copyright © 1990 by Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc

Acceptance Is The Answer And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation —some fact of my life —unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing, or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in God’s world by mistake. Until I could accept my alcoholism, I could not stay sober; unless I accept life completely on life’s terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and in my attitudes. Shakespeare said, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. ” He forgot to mention that I was the chief critic. I was always able to see the flaw in every person, every situation. And I was always glad to point it out, because I knew you wanted perfection, just as I did. A. A. and acceptance have taught me that there is a bit of good in the worst of us and a bit of bad in the best of us; that we are all children of God and we each have a right to be here. When I complain about me or about you, I am complaining about God’s handiwork. I am saying that I know better than God.