Alcoholics Anonymous History In Your Area
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
http://www.aatoronto.org/btimes.html
North Toronto Group To Move After 55 Years…
I first came to the North Toronto Group Tuesday, May 2, 1972. I was twenty-five years old, three days sober, angry, depressed, unsure, shaking, bankrupt, friendless, unemployable, and very scared. That evening I was introduced to a host of kind drunks who were to impact on my life. I would never be the same again.
These were the people who taught me about alcoholism, its insidiousness, and a program of recovery from this life-threatening disease. Many I met that evening have long since passed on, but their legacy remains.
North Toronto’s first meetings were in members’ homes. Soon, the popularity of this north-end meeting forced the members to seek a permanent location. Sometime in late 1946 and early 1947 the Relocation Committee made a verbal arrangement with the administration of St. George’s United Church on Duplex Avenue, to hold their weekly Tuesday open and Friday closed meetings.
This arrangement has never been interrupted until now.
St. George’s has embarked on a program of updating, renovating, and expanding their facility to create a space to meet the pastoral challenges of the Twenty-first Century. Heady stuff – but a sacrifice. All groups using the building must vacate by the end of June for a two-year construction period. For drunks, this is an eternity.
Informed in March, we formed the 2001 Relocation Committee.
Crisis usually brings out the best in people. For the first time in many years we at North Toronto felt our very existence threatened. The Traditions, though, assured us we had a path to follow if we were willing to use it. The group was determined to keep North Toronto open and alive for those alcoholics yet to come, just as it had been open for us.
We are happy to announce the North Toronto Group will be moving for the next couple of years to Grace Church on-the-Hill in the heart of Forest Hill (corner of Russell Hill and Lonsdale), commencing July 3. Our meetings will continue to be Tuesdays and Fridays at 8:00 pm. v Fifty-five years is a long time to live in one house. St. George’s has served the North Toronto Group well. Moving is always emotional. However, we’ve all learned that change is also good. As a group we are excited, encouraged, and grateful for this new lease on life. Thank you, Eglinton/St. George’s and thank you, Grace Church on-the-Hill.
Mike D.
Copyright © June 2001, Better Times, GTA Intergroup, Toronto, Canada
http://www.aatoronto.org/