AA conference begins Friday in Midland

Several hundred West Texans and others in the worldwide fellowships of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and Al-Anon will be Midland this weekend to hear fellow recovering alcoholics and their Al-Anon counterparts share their "experience, strength and hope" in the 36th annual Mid-Winter AA Conference.

The series of speaker meetings will be held Friday, Saturday and Sunday in the Holiday Inn Country Villa in Midland. John R. of Midland will be chairman of the 8 p.m. Thursday "Kick-Off Meeting" there.

Men and women, including recovering alcoholics and those in the Al-Anon family program for friends and family members of alcoholics, from throughout the Southwest traditionally attend the Midland conference.

"Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism," according to AA literature.

The 12-step spiritual program, which was founded in 1935 by Dr. Bob, an Akron, Ohio, physician, and by Bill W., a New York stockbroker, is open to anyone who has a desire for sobriety and to stop drinking alcohol.

Prior to AA's founding, Dr. Bob and Bill W., who had been deemed "hopeless alcoholics," had been associated with the Oxford Group, a fellowship that emphasized universal spiritual values in daily living.

The conference is a series of speaker meetings that are open to AA and Al-Anon members and others who may suspect that they or their loved ones, family members or friends, may have a drinking problem.

The times for the conference's principal speakers are:

n 8 p.m. Friday: AA speaker is Les S. of Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada. Scotty A. of Midland is meeting chairman. Pew B. of Big Spring is chairwoman of the Friday Night Owl Meeting.

n 9 a.m. Saturday: Al-Anon speaker is Kathy H. of Cincinnati, Ohio. Chairwoman is Ann H. of Midland.

n 10:30 a.m. Saturday. AA speaker is Karen G. of Venice, Calif. Chairwoman is Jill W. of Midland.

n 8 p.m. Saturday. AA speaker is Clancy I. of Los Angeles, Calif. Chairman is Davis P. of Midland.

n 10 a.m. Sunday. AA speaker is Sandy H. of Pocatello, Idaho.

Chairwoman is SueAnn H. of Midland

The world-wide AA fellowship has an estimated 100,000 groups, including about 51,200 groups in the United States, and a United States membership estimated at 1.16 million.

The worldwide AA membership totals about 2.2 million in more than 150 countries.

The "Big Book" of Alcoholics Anonymous says to "Remember that we deal with alcohol -- cunning, baffling, powerful! Without help, it is too 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."

AA's 12 Steps toward recovery from alcoholism are:

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol -- that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

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.

12. Having 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.

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