Welcome to the AUGUST 2021 monthly World Tour first-Sunday-of-the-month secular AA speaker meeting, brough to you by International Conference of Secular AA.
August 1, 2021 our Zoom plane touched down in Canberra Australia. It was “our normal time,” 2 PM Sunday—but that was local time AEST, which meant we were 9 PM Saturday Pacific time, Midnight (0:00 Hours) EDT and 5 AM Ireland and UK.
Moderated by Justin, we hear from Stephen, Deb and Chuck...
Deb talked about getting sober young in New Zealand where she lives now. She was science minded and wondered if AA’s religious bent wouldn’t be a barrier. Sober a while, she learned that 40% of people from New Zealand don’t adhere to religion or believe in gods and the percentage was even higher with youth. She would see people come to one meeting and never return. So, she started an AA for Atheists and Agnostics group.
Stephen came to Australia with the US Marine Corp and when he found AA, what was he going to do about this higher power thing? So he chose the values of the Corp: Honor, Courage, Commitment.
Chuck’s 44 years of sobriety has kept him in good stead over 14 different time zones. He shares a lot of what he’s learned including the ABCs of loosing sobriety which he keeps track of: Apathy, Boredom and Complacency.
August in Australia seemed like a natural. Since January we’ve been to Dublin, Orlando, Montreal, Cape Town, Cottonwood AZ, New York City and London ... and now Canberra.
Show notes:
The 4th biennial ICSAA (International Conference of Secular AA) will be in Washington DC October 29th, 30th, 31st, 2021 at Hyatt Regency Bethesda MD. For information about our program, to register, book your hotel and/or volunteer:
AAsecular.org website
Registration is $130 per person, Hotel room rate (Discount code ICSAA2021) is $129/night, single/double.
More ICSAA audio (podcast page):
Email/contact: SecularAA@gmail.com -
Secular AA website
Secular AA is AA sobriety without the God-stuff, one of the fastest growing subcultures within Alcoholics Anonymous offering 100 agnostic/atheist/freethinkers AA meetings every day + regional events and the International Conference of Secular AA (ICSAA). More @ https://aasecular.org