Alcoholics Anonymous History In Your Area
Waikiki, Hawaii
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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 hundred 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 —