Author: Andrew Arthur Dawson

The final day of my trip to Atlanta, Georgia for the 2015 International AA Convention was by far the most interesting and challenging to my recovery for the entire weekend.

It began with my traveling companion being rushed to the hospital in the wee hours of the morning due to having massive pains in her stomach/intestinal region, which is precisely where she stayed for the remainder of the day with no visitors allowed. This of course greatly altered what I had planned to do with her for the day, which was a trip to Stone Mountain for some fireworks and a laser show, as well as hitting an AA meeting somewhere along the way.

I have to say that this immediately posed a big challenge to my recovery, but not for the one I was specifically down there for. If you’ve been following me for a while now through my blog then you already know I also suffered from a sex and love addiction for a very long time. Thankfully I have over three years now clean and sober from that disease, but that doesn’t mean I’m not still overly tempted at times to succumb back into its deadly grips. And in all actuality, Atlanta, Georgia was one of the many places I used to act out in with this very addiction, on three separate occasions in the past in fact. This is one of the big reasons why I hesitated even going to the convention at all because its location didn’t hold many great memories for me. But alas, through much prayer and meditation I felt I was guided to keep my plans to attend, which is why I made sure to keep myself busy with friends and activities the entire time I was there. That is until I hit the final day of my trip when my friend was rushed into the hospital, leaving me alone in the hotel room and in a city that was once one of my former addiction playgrounds.

At first it wasn’t so bad, as I spent a few hours at the hotel pool enjoying a good bask in the sun, while reading a book on my kindle. But at some point I starting feeling really alone inside and began having a slightly restless, irritable, and discontent attitude. I thought initially it was due to my not having eaten anything at that point in time, so I grabbed a burrito from Baja Fresh across the street. But after I consumed that, all of those feelings only intensified and my mind started wandering to places that weren’t healthy at all. One of them was the idea that I should head out to a suburb where I knew someone I once acted out with in my sex and love addiction, all under the pretext that I’d attend an AA meeting there. Thank God I didn’t listen to that notion or any of the other crazy ones that surfaced. Instead, I got in my rental car and headed to a young people’s AA meeting at a clubhouse a few miles outside the downtown Atlanta area.

Ironically the topic there was the 3^rd Step, which is all about God’s will versus self-will. I thought it very apropos for where my mind was at with some of the insane thinking I was having. After sharing about my weekend and many of the struggles I had throughout, I actually felt a lot better. And as soon as that meeting ended, I decided to follow my SLAA sponsor’s advice and get myself to another meeting, specifically for that recovery. Twenty minutes later I was sitting amongst like-minded people and the topic there was once again quite fitting. It was about the spiritual tools we use to remain sober. After sharing in that meeting as well, but from a much more positive perspective, I felt incredibly healthier in mind and body. But, even better, once the meeting ended, several people wanted to have the URL of my blog’s website, and I was even allowed to join a few others for a great dinner afterwards at a fun place called Cowtippers.

An hour an a half later I had made three new friends from that recovery program and noticed those feelings of loneliness, restlessness, irritability, and discontent were totally gone. And in their place, was a renewed sense of peace and serenity. My evening ended not too much longer after that, but not before I had to drop off my traveling companion’s luggage and belongings to her at her hospital room. As I left it and her, I definitely felt some sadness about what she was going through, but what I felt so much greater inside was an immense amount of gratitude to my Higher Power for helping me go to such lengths to remain clean and sober on my final day in Atlanta, Georgia for the 2015 International AA Convention.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

The Saturday night of the International AA Convention that happens once every five years is always reserved for an old-timers meeting. If you happened to not know what qualifies someone as an old-timer in AA, currently it’s 50 years or greater of continuous sobriety. And the way the Saturday evening meeting works is that anyone with this amount of clean time or more places their name in a basket, of which 12 are randomly chosen to speak in front of the 50,000+ people in attendance. The kicker is that they then only get 5 minutes to share their experience, strength, and hope with everyone.

Many of the people I spoke with at the conference told me they felt that the five minutes was too little of time to really say anything of importance. I frankly have to disagree, solely because of what my first sponsor taught me. She showed me how a very strong recovery message could easily be relayed in five minutes or less and that anyone who spoke for longer than that was most likely only speaking from ego.

So as I watched each of the old-timers be called to the podium one by one on Saturday night at the very large Georgia Dome meeting, I saw how most did just that and completely struggled to keep their message under the five minute limit. For some it was due to them trying to tell their entire journey to sobriety, while for others, it was due to them telling jokes and stories. One or two though did keep to the time limit and in all honesty, it was their shares that are the ones I remember the most.

When the meeting was over, I spent some time pondering what I might say if I were an old-timer myself and was called up to the podium to speak in front of 50,000+ individuals for 300 seconds. After much deliberation, this is what I came up with:

“Hello family, my name is Andrew and I’m a grateful recovering alcoholic. I truly believe there’s only one reason why I’m standing here before all of you and why I’ve been able to remain clean and sober for all these years. It’s what’s the 12 Steps guided me to and that’s an unconditionally loving God. Today I can see that it’s God who helped me make it through all those years I grew up in an alcoholic family. It’s God who helped me make it through all the times I was bullied at school. It’s God who helped me make it through being molested as a young boy by a 45-year-old man. It’s God who helped me make it through each of the years I drank and drugged so excessively. It’s God who helped me come to terms with my sexuality. It’s God who helped me make it through my father’s suicide and my mother’s drunken and deadly fall down the stairs. It’s God who helped me make it through more than a decade of being a dry drunk and falling prey to countless other addictions. It’s God who helped me get through the loss of my business and financial collapse. It’s God who helped me endure all the years I battled very serious health issues. And it’s most definitely God who eventually led me into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. I’m so grateful to AA because it’s the 12 Steps that helped me cultivate a much deeper relationship to my Higher Power and heal from all of these things that created so much misery for much of my life. And it’s because of God and the 12 Steps that I know today there is not a single person, place, or thing out there in the world that will ever bring me true happiness. That has only ever come to me through three things: Serving my Higher Power, Living the 12 Steps, and Doing my best to love each and every one of you unconditionally. If it weren’t for those three things, I’m quite positive I wouldn’t be standing here right now doing my best to pass on a little of my own experience, strength, and hope to all of you. Thank you everyone for listening, I love you all…” 

So while it remains to be seen whether I’ll ever be given a chance one day to speak for five minutes to 50,000+ people, I can say that if I am, as an old-timer or something else altogether, that my message will be one that gives total credit to the only thing that saved me from a total life of despair and loneliness and that’s God…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

I always find it interesting how God works in so many mysterious ways. Being at a 65,000+ attended AA convention, I’m sure you’d probably agree that it would be next to impossible to run into the one person I was most afraid to see. But God saw fit to do just that on the second day I was there in downtown Atlanta, amongst thousands of other people.

If you read the entry I wrote a few weeks ago about the two fears (https://thetwelfthstep.com/2015/06/23/two-fears-about-the-upcoming-2015-aa-international-convention/) I had in going to this convention, then you already know whom I’m talking about. But for those who didn’t, I speaking of the closest friend I’ve ever had in life, the same one who was originally meant to attend this convention with me.

When I moved away from Massachusetts, he didn’t handle it so well, and within a few months began to pull away and distance himself from our long-standing friendship. Eventually, he stopped staying in touch altogether and opted to attend the convention with some other friends instead. At first I became angry, but eventually was able to let it go when I realized it wasn’t because of anything I did, as it was something he had to resolve within himself. Little did I know that God was going to have all that take place during a very heavily attended AA convention in downtown Atlanta, Georgia?

On the day this actually happened, I was with my traveling companion, a woman from my recovery life back in the Boston area. We had planned on attending an afternoon meeting together, but were unable to do so when we discovered each of the ones we tried to get into were completely full. As an alternative, we ended up walking around Centennial Park for a short bit of time, and then decided to find a place to get a coffee. After taking a few random lefts and rights through the park, we went up the street a few blocks and were about to cross a very busy intersection when lo and behold, the one person I was so afraid to see, was on the other side waiting to cross himself. I immediately pulled out my phone, pretending I was doing something really important on it, deeply hoping he didn’t see me. But he did, and he waited patiently for us to cross and then hugged my recovery friend from Boston and then me.

I think it’d be safe to say that my ego really didn’t want to give him that hug. But thankfully I live by a much Higher Calling these days, because after I did, it was agreed we should sit down and talk. Ironically, the first thing he told me was how he suddenly had felt the urge to break away form the conference himself and head out in the random direction he did, which is precisely what put him on the path that intersected my own. After the hour and a half discussion between us flew by, the nine months that had passed without any contact from him seemed to melt away. He made his amends and told me how hard it’s been on him not having me close by anymore. He explained that his pulling back was the only way he knew how to deal with his abandonment issues and said that’s why he choose to room with others at the convention. He even paid off an old debt he owed me that I thought he had totally forgotten about.

That night we attended the huge meeting in the Georgia Dome together and it was like no time had ever passed at all. Even better, the next day the two of us headed out of town to a meeting about 20 miles away in Sandy Springs. There, we shared a small breakfast beforehand, felt spiritually inspired at the 8111 Clubhouse during the actual meeting, and then he took me to a late lunch at a place in Little Five Points, where it was just like old times between us. Later that evening, we attended the big meeting in the Dome again and it was there he gave me a very special 20-year medallion that I know was a true unconditionally loving gesture from his heart. When the meeting was over, we shared a long hug together and he promised he’d make a much greater effort to start reconnecting with me on a regular basis.

While I honestly don’t know whether that will end up being true or not in the long run, I must say that I feel a sense of peace in my heart now, where all that fear formerly was. I understand my friend so much greater now and truly was able to see his pain and abandonment issues he still has to face in life. Whether he works through them or not is up to him and God, but I’m still extremely grateful to my Higher Power for the chance encounter that led to such a peaceful and serene resolution…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson