This invitation is repeated at every AA meeting I’ve attended. I find it as important as “Work the Steps” for it is a sharp reminder to all of us whether you’re a 30-day person or the 30-year person: our sobriety is dependent on the quality of the way we “work the Program” and central to that admonishment is to “keep coming back.”

We’d moved to an assisted living facility, and I was looking for a nearby meeting and found one. The first time I walked in, struggling with my walker to cross unfamiliar bumps in the sidewalk and doorway, those already there greeted me as a friend, a friend. No questions, just “Welcome, git ya some coffee? Where ya from?” No hesitation, just smiles, handshakes. A warmth filled that room. I practically cried.  They had their own program format, easy to follow for after enough meetings at various places you sorta get a feel of what’s up next.  After the meeting I shook hands with a guy also from Cincinnati where we had lived for over 60 years. We exchanged which meetings we’d frequented and names of folks we’d run into, we both knew one of the granddads of Cincinnati AA. As we said goodbye, he said, guess what, “Come on back next week!” He wasn’t just being polite. He simply said what most of us hear when leaving an AA meeting, “Come on back!”

New in the Program we may have been rather relaxed about a regular attendance, sorta like “Not tonight, I went last night, don’t feel like it tonight,” or “No way...got a lot on my mind.” Then one night, you hear a lead of someone who “didn’t” keep coming back and she slipped back to “them old sick days” followed with guilt and sadness of her failure ... but she soon returned and was of course, welcomed.

The very words of the Steps tell us why to keep coming back: “Continue to take...” (#10); “Seek through prayer...” (#11); and “Practice these principles...” (#12).

We must always remember our ego is watching for a chance to drag us back, telling us “You’re fine, all that time at meetings, you don’t need to go any more.” Our ego never leaves us and seeks to take advantage of missteps by us.

And that brings us to the second part of “why “we need to keep coming back: because one of our charges in recovery is to carry the message to others who still suffer. And where else other than at a beginners AA meeting are you going to have the opportunity to do that. And if you have only a short period of sobriety and are a “newbie” yourself, what better place can you find folks trying to do the same thing.

So, keep coming back, it works if you continue to work it and as you carry this message of hope to others still suffering.

-Jim A., St X Noon Cincinnati and Springboro/Franklyn Wednesday, Noon