I’m 16 years sober today and a very grateful member of the Ledard Road group in Glasgow. We meet on a Saturday morning, 10am - 11.30am. I’d like to tell you a bit about the group and the folk in it so that if you get the chance you might want to pay us a visit. You will be most welcome. The sandwiches are second to none.

The group was established around 17 years ago and was allowed to meet in the premises of the Priory hospital which specialises in dealing with psychiatric illnesses, including alcoholism. The core idea for the creation of our AA group was to encourage Priory patients to attend our meeting, to see what’s on offer, enjoy fellowship with us, and hopefully to become members of AA on leaving hospital.

The big question of course is: “Has it worked?” The answer to that is a definite: “Yes!” We do on occasion attract former patients of the Priory into membership of AA. But it has to be said, not as many as we would like. Some of the Priory folk who have joined us in our journey of living sober, growing up, and recovering from this illness, form the backbone of the group, but unfortunately not enough of them.

The real success of our group is the same as any other in the Fellowship. It works best and most effectively in keeping most of our current members sober. At the last count our ‘paper’ membership was approaching 40, which brings me to what I really want to talk about: the many and often funny imperfections of the Ledard Road group of Alcoholics Anonymous. I’ve come to realise that my love for the group, and my gratitude towards it, is driven by the many sober, lovely, quirky, frustrating and sometimes out and out nutty folk who are our group.

Let me say straight off that I come into all of the above categories of flawed humanity. And of course it goes without saying that even on my worst days of being a major pain in the butt, my fellow group members smile, some give me a hug and all tell me it’s nice to see me and to keep coming back - wonderful, unique and AA at its very best. There are all sorts of characters in the group. We are a bit like a box of liquorice allsorts, sometimes cruelly referred to by some of the ‘real’ alcoholics who visit us, as ‘the Gucci group’. Being an ex and hopefully fully recovered ‘real’ alcoholic myself I take this as a great compliment.

My own explanation of our being referred to by some as the ‘the Gucci group’ is simple. The critics who visit us and who aren’t comfortable are of course themselves the problem, not the group. They, as I did before them, struggle to be at ease with what are in fact perceived differences between themselves and a lot of the other alcoholics attending the meeting.

Of course, this is nothing more than the old inferiority/superiority sickness of the illness of alcoholism. All it takes to break through this damaging perception is a little honesty and a smidgen of humility. Unfortunately, sometimes a tall order even for recovering alcoholics.

We ‘liquorice allsorts’ of Ledard Road do have lawyers, accountants, plumbers, painters, cleaners, doctors, counsellors, old, young, employed and unemployed in our ranks. We have sensibles and dafties; flirters and hard to gets; whingers and smilers; mice and monsters. We have pomposity and humility; patter merchants and shy types; introverts and extroverts; rule breakers and rule bounders. We even have Partick Thistle supporters!! All sorts.

The really great thing is that from week to week a whinger can become a smiler, a daftie can be a sensible, a flirter becomes a hard to get etc. Wonderful, unpredictable, alcoholic imperfections on a grand scale. And the most wonderful thing of all is this. We are all trying together, as a group, to stay sober and help other alcoholics achieve sobriety.

Pay us a visit soon and see if you can spot a daftie from a sensible or a lawyer from a roofer. If you get it right, take your answer to JC or JF who will present you with a first prize token for a free fish supper at your heart attack chippie of choice!!

Great to be sober for 16 years!

Love,

Baz Doc, Ledard Road Group, Glasgow