Sometime in early 1990, I was treating a woman in an intensive outpatient chemical dependency group. We will call her Grace. Grace was a flight attendant; and suspended from her job with the major airline she worked with. She had been stealing the miniature bottles of liquor, and was seen drinking in airport bars whilst wearing her uniform. Her employers, realising she needed treatment, sent her to us.

After completing the eight weeks programme, I suggested to Grace it might be a good idea to solidify her foundation in recovery before returning to work in a high-risk environment of having to serve alcohol, and being out of town alone. But Grace chose to return to work shortly afterwards. One day, departing from the plane at Los Angeles International Airport after she had completed a long day at work, a massive craving for alcohol overpowered her. She tried to ‘think through it, forget about it’, but it was way too powerful. So powerful that she resigned to herself that she would just go and drink. She was thinking, ‘So I’ll just get another job, or maybe no one would find out anyway’. However, deep down inside of her Grace did not want to drink. She truly wanted to stay sober but she knew she was in trouble.
On her way to the bar in the airport, Grace had a moment of sanity. She stopped, picked up the airport paging phone and said, 'Will you please page friends of Bill W….' She paused, quickly looking around for an empty gate, ‘….to come to Gate 12?' Within minutes, twice over the paging system at LA International Airport came: ‘Will friends of Bill W please come to Gate 12.’ Most people in recovery know that asking if you are a friend of Bill W is an anonymous way to identify yourself as a member of AA. In less than five minutes, there were about fifteen people at that gate from all over the world! This brought tears of amazement, relief and joy to Grace. They went ahead and had a little meeting at Gate 12, everyone total strangers prior to that moment.
Grace discovered that two of those people had gotten out of their boarding lines and missed their flights to answer that call for help. They had remembered what they had seen on many walls of meeting rooms: 'When anyone anywhere reaches out their hand for help, I want the hand of AA always to be there, and for that I am responsible.' Grace did not drink that day. I would venture to guess that none of the people who came to Gate 12 drank that day either. Instead, Grace had a moment of sanity, realised she could not do it on her own. She took the action of asking for help and received it immediately. This help is available to all of us if we want it, and sincerely ask for it. It never fails.