This meeting was started by a few sober women members of Alcoholics Anonymous who are "old enough to know better, but still too young to care". Most of us work full-time jobs and we like to have meetings later at night, so we can relax, eat dinner, take care of what we need to at home, like our children and our dogs, and then go to a meeting. We do not listen to the Joe & Charlie CDs in the meeting except for when we are on the 4th Step, but we do follow their handout from their Big Book Study workshops.
For those of you who already know who Joe & Charlie are you are all set, but for those of you who don't, here is a brief description.
When sober people talk about the program, the two most common names you’ll hear tossed around are, of course, Bill and Bob. But there’s another duo that are spoken about with nearly equal reverence: Joe McQuany and Charlie Parmley, a team of two men (who died in 2007 and 2011, respectively) known as Joe and Charlie who met in 1973 and spent the next three decades spreading their interpretation of the Big Book.
These two Southern gentlemen are credited with making the program literature accessible to many who might have otherwise found the language archaic, obtuse or just downright confusing. As Larry Gaines, the CEO of the Kelly Foundation—an organization dedicated to recovery from addiction that Joe McQuany launched in 1978—“People often say that it took Bill and Bob to write the Big Book but it took Joe and Charlie to explain it.”
Source: The Legend of Joe & Charlie
To listen to a sample of Joe & Charlie, click here. :)
Please go to the bottom of this page to download and PRINT the very important Big Book Study handout (JOE&CHARLIE04242020.PDF) that you will need to bring to the meeting with you along with your Big Book. There is also a business card image that can be posted to AA websites and AA club bulletin boards, if you would like to help us to spread the word about this website and our meeting! (Please note: The Sunday night meeting at 5pm no longer exists. It is now Monday night at 7:30 p.m. and it is a women's meeting.) Feel free to create and order more of the business cards with Vistaprint to share with members in your area. (See image banner on top for business card layout. You can also order magnets which are great for AA clubs, libraries, and home use.)
For the new people: Squiggly writing is IMPORTANT! :) For the old people, the handout we are using has five columns for the inventory instead of four, so please print our handout before coming to the meeting. (Columns 1-3 are on page 65 in the Big Book and Columns 4 and 5 are found in the third paragraph on page 67.) Now that we are on Zoom, the handout is also displayed on the screen by the chairperson during the meeting, so that you can follow along with it according to where we are in the book.
Thank you! :)
Becky Serenity
EST January 23, 2017
Looking for your own Joe and Charlie CDs? You can order them from Lee's Tape's and CDs (This is NOT an endorsement. We are listing this as a reliable known source to purchase the complete, live recorded CDs.)
If you are looking for AA phone meetings, please go to the aaphonemeetingsujpdated03252020.pdf OR go to the following link for all registered online meetings. https://www.aa-intergroup.org/directory.php
If you are looking for Al-Anon phone meetings, please go to the following link. http://www.alanonphonemeetings.org/phonemeetings.org/
A little Detroit AA history has also been included on this site. Theresa M. Schultz, LDD: 11-30-49 of Plymouth, Michigan who was sponsored by Archie Trowbridge, "The Man Who Mastered Fear" in the third edition of the Big Book, stayed sober for over 50 years and lived to be 105. She wrote two very beautiful and spiritual poems. Her poems, The Rosebud and the The Time is Now can be found on the Helpful Recovery Literature section of this website. You are welcome to share these poems with her inspiring words with others in AA like everything else on this website and feel free to put them up on the walls of your AA clubs.
Our primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety.
