Alcoholics Anonymous history in your area
Waikiki, Hawaii
—
A Brief History of the Twelve Coconuts Group
My
name is Ron R. and I am a member of the Twelve Coconuts Group, which
meets in Kapiolani Park, Waikiki six days a week.
In
March, 1985, I was living in Waikiki and since I have always been
an early riser, I was looking out the window and I noticed that there
were a lot of tourists on the streets at five-thirty in the morning
and it came to my mind that these folks could be up to 6 hours earlier
on the bio-clock, say from Manhattan, and they had no place to go
to early in the morning but a bar or the local convenience store where
they also sell alcohol.
As
I was very young in my sobriety at the time (DOS 7/24/1984) and was
already addicted to as many meetings as I could get to it came to
my mind from, I am sure, my Higher Power, that I needed to start an
early morning meeting and since Kapiolani Park has always been my
"front yard" I chose to go to the park and an area know
as "Queen's Surf." and my sponsor sent two people that did
not want to come but were threatened with eviction if they did not
clean up their act, I was assisted by the two coffee makers who really
disliked me and the fact that they had to get up at an early hour
and walk the coffee about two blocks to the meeting, which meets in
the beginning of the park on the beach side of the street.
For
about three weeks I went all over town to different meetings with
bookmarks that had the 11th Step Prayer on them, I had gotten them
from a Catholic Book Store and used to go in and try and bargain with
them as I was on welfare at the time and spent all of my money trying
to get as many bookmarks as possible written up with "New Meeting
in Kapiolani Park, Mon. Wed. and Fridays at seven in the morning.April
1st.I did a lot of writing.
The
first meeting had 32 people.April Fool's Day,1985 ( that was unintentional)
Two
weeks after the meeting started, an anonymous woman visitor from Vancouver
shared and said, " This is so wonderful, here I am a recovered
drunk, a Christian, there were twelve Apostles, there are 12 steps,
12 traditions and here I am in a meeting in Waikiki under 12 Palm
trees. In unison the whole group went HUH? Sure enough there were
twelve Coconut Trees and that is how we got our name. No one had bothered
to count the trees and so we were given our name by a Canadian Visitor
which to me means that we are truly an international group.
We
now meet six days a week, Mon.-Sat and seven in the morning and on
Monday, we discuss the first step, Tuesday the 2nd, Wed. the 3rd and
Thursday is the Promises,Friday the 11th Step and on Saturdays we
discuss the Traditions. We meet every day, rain and shine and if it
is raining we meet in the snack bar, a short walk from the daily meeting.
We
also move to a different spot every day to do our part in keeping
the area pristine.
During
our conventions the meetings swell to over several hundreds and one
of the most awe-inspiring moments is when we literally take over a
large part of the park to do the Lord's Prayer in a gigantic circle,
it is truly a wonderful experience.
Our
visitors are greeted with A.L.O.H.A. which means a lot of happy alcoholics.
Also we
do a little song and dance that goes: "When I start my day the
AA way, I know my life will be OK, hey, hey, doo wop doo wop doo wop."
Mahalo (Thank
You) for letting me share our experience with you, Ron R. (DOS 7/24/84)
Submitted
by Ron R. of the Twelve Coconuts Group, Waikiki, Hawaii
— Ron R: mellowstar23@hawaii.rr.com
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