Hotline: 630-833-7897 / 773-202-5324 [email protected]
Northern Illinois A.A. District 41 | Unity Service Recovery

DRINKING PROBLEM?

WE HAVE HAD THE SOLUTION SINCE 1935.

 

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Meeting Guide is a service of A.A. World Services, Inc.

What Is A.A.?

From The A.A. Preamble

 

Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their

experience, strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common

problem and help others to recover from alcoholism.

The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. There are no

dues or fees for AA membership; we are self-supporting through our own

contributions. AA is not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization or

institution; does not wish to engage in any controversy, neither endorses nor

opposes any causes. Our primary purpose is to stay sober and help other

alcoholics to achieve sobriety.

Copyright © The AA Grapevine, Inc.

Reprinted with permission

THE TWELVE STEPS OF ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS

A.A.'s Twelve Steps are a group of principles, spiritual in their nature, which, if practiced as of life, can expel the obsession to drink and enable the sufferer to become happily and usefully whole.

THE TWELVE STEPS

Here are the steps we took, which are suggested as a program of recovery: 1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol” that our lives had become unmanageable. 2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. 3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. 4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. 5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. 6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. 7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings. 8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. 9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. 10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it. 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. 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. (Reprinted from with permission of A.A. World Services, Inc.)
The Twelve Steps

THE TWELVE TRADITIONS OF ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS (Short Form)

A.A.'s Twelve Traditions apply to the life of the Fellowship itself. They outline the means by which A.A. maintains its unity and relates itself to the world about it, the way it lives and grows.

THE TWELVE TRADITIONS

1. Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon A.A. unity. 2. For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern. 3.  The only requirement for A.A. membership is a desire to stop drinking. 4.  Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or A.A. as a whole. 5. Each group has but one primary purpose to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers. 6. An A.A. group ought never endorse, finance or lend the A.A. name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property and prestige divert us from our primary purpose. 7. Every A.A. group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions. 8. Alcoholics Anonymous should remain forever nonprofessional, but our service centers may employ special workers. 9. A.A., as such, ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve. 10. Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the A.A. name ought never be drawn into public controversy. 11. Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio and films. 12.Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our Traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities. (Reprinted from with permission of A.A. World Services, Inc.)

The Twelve Traditions

HOW IT WORKS: The Twelve Concepts

THE TWELVE CONCEPTS

(Short Form) A.A.’s Twelve Steps are principles for personal recovery. The Twelve Traditions ensure the unity of the Fellowship. Written by co-founder Bill W. in 1962, the Twelve Concepts for World Service provide a group of related principles to help ensure that various elements of A.A.’s service structure remain responsive and responsible to those they serve. The short form of the Concepts, which follows, was prepared by the 1974 General Service Conference. I. Final responsibility and ultimate authority for A.A. world services should always reside in the collective conscience of our whole Fellowship. II. The General Service Conference of A.A. has become, for nearly every practical purpose, the active voice and the effective conscience of our whole Society in its world affairs. III. To insure effective leadership, we should endow each element of A.A., the Conference, the General Service Board and its service corporations, staffs, committees, and executives ”with a traditional Right of Decision. IV. At all responsible levels, we ought to maintain a traditional Right of Participation, allowing a voting representation in reasonable proportion to the responsibility that each must discharge. V. Throughout our structure, a traditional Right of Appeal ought to prevail, so that minority opinion will be heard and personal grievances receive careful consideration. VI. The Conference recognizes that the chief initiative and active responsibility in most world service matters should be exercised by the trustee members of the Conference acting as the General Service Board. VII. The Charter and Bylaws of the General Service Board are legal instruments, empowering the trustees to manage and conduct world service affairs. The Conference Charter is not a legal document; it relies upon tradition and the A.A. purse for final effectiveness. VIII. The trustees are the principal planners and administrators of overall policy and finance. They have custodial oversight of the separately incorporated and constantly active services, exercising this through their ability to elect all the directors of these entities. IX. Good service leadership at all levels is indispensable for our future functioning and safety. Primary world service leadership, once exercised by the founders, must necessarily be assumed by the trustees. X. Every service responsibility should be matched by an equal service authority, with the scope of such authority well defined. XI. The trustees should always have the best possible committees, corporate service directors, executives, staffs, and consultants. Composition, qualifications, induction procedures, and rights and duties will always be matters of serious concern. XII. The Conference shall observe the spirit of A.A. tradition, taking care that it never becomes the seat of perilous wealth or power; that sufficient operating funds and reserve be its prudent financial principle; that it place none of its members in a position of unqualified authority over others; that it reach all important decisions by discussion, vote, and, whenever possible, by substantial unanimity; that its actions never be personally punitive nor an incitement to public controversy. (Reprinted from with permission of A.A. World Services, Inc.)

The Twelve Concepts

The Grapevine and La Viña apps!

 

 

The Grapevine and La Viña Apps are here!

The Grapevine and La Viña apps are here!

Download the apps for free from the Apple App Store for iPhone, or from Google Play for Android.

Subscribe to the digital magazine and archive for $2.99 per month, or $29.99 per year.

With a Digital subscription, you’ll be able to read the new magazine each month, explore the Grapevine or La Viña archive, send stories to friends, listen to the audio of each article in the magazine, listen to the podcast, enter your own sobriety date for a daily calculation, build your own spiritual maintenance daily checklist, and much more.

 

 

Nothing matters more to A.A.’s future welfare than the manner in which we use the colossus of modern communication.  Used unselfishly and well, it can produce results surpassing our present imagination.— Bill W

FOR PROFESSIONALS

This is our service area

Addison, Bensenville, Elmhurst, Lombard, Oakbrook Terrace, Villa Park, and Wood Dale in DuPage County, Illinois. We will happily help you get in touch with other districts if you are out of our area. If you would like to make an appointment to discuss A.A. as a resource, set up an A.A. meeting, or have a speaker, please contact the us at [email protected]  /learn_more]

HOW AA’S COOPERATE WITH PROFESSIONALS

IF YOU ARE A PROFESSIONAL

EMPLOYER VIDEO

HEALTHCARE

HEALTHCARE VIDEO

LEGAL & CORRECTIONS

LEGAL & CORRECTIONS VIDEO

TREATMENT

BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN TREATMENT AND AA

A.A. Video for Employment/Human Resources Professionals

A.A. Video for Healthcare Professionals

FULL STRENGTH AA: FINANCIAL FACT SHEETS

“A.A.’s far-flung Twelfth Step activities, carrying the message to the next sufferer, are the very lifeblood of our A.A. adventure. Without this vital activity, we would soon become anemic; we would literally wither and die.“Now where do A.A.’s services — worldwide, area, local — fit into our scheme of things? Why should we provide these func-tions with money? The answer is simple enough. Every single A.A. service is designed to make more and better Twelfth Step work possible, whether it be a group meeting place, a central or intergroup office to arrange hospitalization and sponsorship, or the world service Headquarters [now the General Service Office] to maintain unity and effectiveness all over the globe.“Though not costly, these service agencies are absolutely essential to our continued expansion — to our survival as a Fellowship. Their costs are a collective obligation that rests squarely upon all of us. Our support of services actually amounts to recognition on our part that A.A. must everywhere function in full strength — and that, under our Tradition of self-support, we are all going to foot the bill.”Bill W., October 1967 Grapevine 

https://www.aa.org/assets/en_US/mg-15_finance.pdf

http://www.aa.org/assets/en_US/f-203_en_seventhtraditionsfactsheet.pdf

FULL STRENGTH AA: SERVICE POSITIONS

District Meeting

SERVICE COMMITTEE POSITIONS OPEN

District 41 Committee Chair Positions

Get active in your sobriety and help carry the message to others by doing service work.
As is mentioned in the Legacy Of Service (download available from aa.org) Bill W expressed his concerns about the need for us as AA members to make sure we maintain service to carry the message to the still suffering alcoholic.
One form of this service is getting involved in District committees.

Elmhurst Presbyterian Church at 367 Spring Road in Elmhurst, IL 60126  3rd Thursday of every month at 7pm in Calvin Hall


INTERESTED IN SERVICE? WE NEED YOU!
PLEASE JOIN US – VISITORS WELCOME!

Newsletter

Events

Service Committees

GSR General Service Representative

For a new general service representative, this leaflet outlines responsibilities and useful sources of information; for a group, what to keep in mind when electing a G.S.R.

General Service Conference-approved.

 

7th Tradition News From GSO

About 3 or 4 years ago the “cost” of supporting the General Service office was $7.28 per individual AA member.  A movement was started in the Pacific northwest that each member was encouraged to send in $7.28 on July 28 and the idea spread from group to group all over the country. And on July 28 and for days after loads of contributions came in for $7.28 each.  The next year it was a bit more and this year the cost is $8.11 and again a grass roots movement has found many contributions of $8.11.

$8.11 can be still paid at the GSO website

Meeting Needs Support –

Who:          

What: This meeting needs support

When:       

Where:     

ASL now on the A.A.W.S. YouTube Channel!

ASL Big Book & 12×12 are now available on the A.A.W.S. YouTube channel

 

ASL now on the A.A.W.S. YouTube Channel!

 
 

ASL Big Book and 12×12 Have Arrived in English!

Dear Friend,  Good news! The Big Book and Twelve and Twelve in ASL are available with closed captions on the A.A.W.S. YouTube channel. All videos have closed captions and are in English only. We hope you enjoy!

 

Online Anonymity

“In my belief, the entire future of our fellowship hangs upon this vital principle. If we

continue to be filled with the spirit and practice of anonymity, no shoal or reef can wreck

us. If we forget this principle, the lid to Pandora’s box will be off and the spirits of Money,

Power, and Prestige will be loosed among us.

 

I am positive that A.A.’s anonymity is the key to long time survival.

 

A.A. Comes of Age, pp. 131-132

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