Northern Kentucky AA Central Office Needs Your Help!
There are a lot of people who attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings who are unaware that there is an office that supports all the AA groups in Northern Kentucky. The name of the office is generally referred to by members as ‘the Central Office’. Catchy name, huh...
The mission statement of the Central Office is: To assist these groups in their common purpose of carrying the A.A. message to the alcoholic who still suffers. It supports the groups by selling AA books, coins, and literature, if needed in bulk, at lowest cost possible, disseminating information, prints fliers at no cost for any event that groups sponsor, displays the archives and history of AA in Northern KY, maintains the 24-hour AA hotline for Northern Kentucky holds three AA meetings a week (and more are welcome), serves as a meeting place for larger committee meetings such as for the state convention meetings, Rule 62, etc., and is the starting point to maintain, correct and update the Where and When booklet and the Meeting Guide App. Whew!
There is a meeting held monthly for all the Intergroup Representatives (IGRs) and General Service Representatives (GSRs) to get updated on future events occurring in AA in Northern KY, get a business report on the Central Office and share information with the other IGRs and GSRs about events and the activities of his or her own group.
Unfortunately, for the last few months, there has been a waning attendance from the groups at the monthly meeting and fewer contributions from the groups which have precipitated a real financial need and requests for donations. The Central Office needs your support to support you. Please encourage your IGRs and GSRs to attend the monthly meeting (the next meeting is July 16) and to discuss financial support for the Central Office in your next group conscience. The Where and When booklet incorrectly only lists the Venmo for the Greater Cincinnati Intergroup (which includes the Cincinnati area only and does not include Northern Kentucky) on the first page. We are working to fix that issue. So, in the meantime, please send any donations directly to the office.
Thank you for your support.
Intergroup Central Office
1545 Scott St
Covington, Ky 41011
June 2025
Fear or Faith
The first of the “Four Horsemen” of alcoholism that the Big Book mentions is
“Terror.” (p. 151)
How I can relate to this! The last years of my drinking were a maze of nightmares and insomnia. When I’d finally fall asleep for a little while, I’d bolt up wide awake, my heart pounding, terrified. One of the great blessings of sobriety is to be able to sleep without a horror movie in my dreams of monsters and terrorists hell bent on killing me.
Inventories showed me that those terrible nights kept happening because I was leading a double life and lying to everyone and myself that I was “fine.” Drinking no longer gave me relief, but I had to drink. I felt hopeless and hated who I had become. I was profoundly alone because I wouldn’t let anyone in.
Nothing changed until AA helped me to start opening up and being honest with another human being. Others had experienced the same terror and had found a Higher Power that let them face their worst fears.
I still have normal human worries – about the future, finances, loved ones with serious health problems, fears about losing dear ones. I still avoid taking tough action steps and can get paralyzed by doubt and indecision. I retired not long ago, and the old anxiety takes me over at times. Yet now I have a “solution, a way of living that works in tough going.” When I start to lose all emotional sobriety, the six words I heard long ago from the old-timers come back” Trust God. Clean house. Help others.”
My Higher Power will never let me down!
-Kevin P.
Northside Tuesday Night Group
Fear
Fear is a corrosive toxin. It seeps into even the most sacred parts of me, like my romantic heart.
In my Fourth Step, I wrote a description of my ideal partner in a romantic relationship. Maybe she doesn’t exist. My sponsor asked me a direct question: “Do you think anyone can live up to this?”
I answered, “That’s probably the point. The assignment says, ‘my ideal partner.’”
Since then, I’ve revised it again and again. I’ve grown, and with that growth, my understanding of the kind of woman I want to commit to has matured. Having it on paper gives me something solid, something sacred to measure against. But that doesn’t always stop me from compromising.
Sometimes they make the grade in key areas and fall short in others. But I tell myself the good outweighs the bad, so I accept it. I settle.
In that moment, I quietly replace faith with fear.
God is no longer in charge. Fear becomes the master of my universe.
-Andrew M.
The Dancing Chameleon
As a younger version of myself, I believed that I was not afraid of anything. You are looking at an individual who jumped out of perfectly good airplanes, leaped from a bridge into a moving coal train and participated in some scary gang events (no detail here). I was very confident in my masculine self. But there is a different and life bending type of fear that I was not aware of. With the help of this program, it became evident that I was a fear driven person.
This fear was a fear of trust, of personal connections and of feelings. Being raised in an alcoholic family, I learned at an early age to be a chameleon and always test the waters prior to stating my thoughts or feelings. Depending on the mood of my father when he arrived home, the evening could be a fun-fest or a scare-fest. My older sister and I never knew until the front door opened and in he came.
This fear-based attitude towards relationships extended with childhood friends and then with high school friends and of course then with adult relationships. Looking back, I’m sad that I went through a large portion of my life making a joke out of serious topics because I was unknowingly afraid to state my feelings. It took years of work with my sponsor and with counselors to stop avoiding feelings and to try to answer from my heart. On the outside I was super confident while on the inside I was dancing a jig continually to always answer what you wanted to hear, not what I was feeling. Even today, I’m still working to not dance to that tune. In a group setting when everyone is laughing and just having fun, it’s still hard when I speak to not try and entertain or state what I think you want to hear but just participate and answer from the heart.
The 12 Steps allow me to be in this moment, not in the past or not in the future. I am so blessed to be part of this AA family and to be what my Higher Power wants me to be rather than being a chameleon. Thanks AA.
-Mick S.
Group History: After the Shipwreck
Name of Group: After the Shipwreck
Date Founded: 2008
Founders: Jim R. and Ed C.
Place of First Meeting: St. Paul’s Church, Fort Thomas, KY
After the Shipwreck was formed in 2008 when several members of Oaklawn Big Book Group II decided to leave Oaklawn and start a new meeting. Originally these several members decided to try to find a new Monday night meeting. That idea blossomed into the idea of starting After the Shipwreck. The original meeting took place at the home of Ed C. and was attended by approximately 11 members. The first meeting was chaired by Jim R. and he became the first chairperson for a month.
The group decided on a rotating format which it has followed ever since. The group decided that the meeting time would be 7:30 pm in deference to one member who had just started a new job. That member no longer attends the meetings. After the Shipwreck’s name was proposed by Jim R. and Ed C. and comes from a reading out of the Big Book—the first page of There is a Solution.
The group decided to have an eat and meet for its first official meeting. This has become an anniversary tradition at After the Shipwreck with pork tenderloin being served each year at the anniversary dinner. The group met at Ed C.’s house for approximately six weeks. Thereafter, it moved to its current location at St. Paul’s Church in Fort Thomas. The group prides itself on its friendly informality but tries to rigorously adhere to the Big Book. Currently Shipwreck has approximately 25 home group members (pirates) and many more who attend the meeting on a regular basis. It has two events each year—an anniversary eat and meet in May, and a Big Book donation dinner meeting in the Fall.
The AA Principles and Virtues from the 12 Steps
The AA Principles &Virtues from the 12 Steps
Spiritual Principles (as found in the 12 &12)
Bill W. considered each step to be a spiritual principle in and of itself, however, particularly in the 12 & 12, he outlined the spiritual principles behind each step. The most important of these is Humility.
Core Spiritual Principles of the Program: Willingness, Open-mindedness, Honesty
AA’s Code: Love and Tolerance of Others
1. We admitted that we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable. Acceptance, Admission of Defeat, Open-mindedness, Willingness, Humility
2. Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. Open-mindedness, Humility, Acceptance
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him. Willingness, Humility
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. Honesty Fearlessness Willingness Humility
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. Humility, Willingness, Honesty, Humility, Forgiveness, Open-mindedness, Acceptance, Prudence, Serenity
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. Willingness, Honesty, Open-mindedness, Acceptance, Humility
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings. Humility, Willingness, Open-mindedness.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all. Forgiveness, Calmness, Brotherhood, Honesty, Thoroughness, Responsibility, Humility Acceptance Tolerance Objective
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. Good Judgment, Courage, Humility, Sincerity, Forthright, Generous, Willingness,
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it. Discipline, Acceptance, Humility, Patience, Persistence, Self-restraint, Honesty, Willingness, Forgiveness, Fair-minded, Tolerance, Love, Kindness,
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. Humility, Love, Forgiveness, Harmony, Truth, Faith, Hope, Compassion, Understanding, Self-forgetting, Willingness, Strength, Wisdom, Serenity,
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. Gratitude, Acceptance, Love, Honesty, Tolerance, Unselfishness, Strength, Serenity, Giving, Fortitude, Faith, Brotherhood, Service, Understanding, Courage, Wisdom, Humility.