Ever wondered what goes on down the stairs from this sign across from the Co-op and behind Domino’s in Roosevelt Center? The answer is:
33 Alcoholics Anonymous meetings per week.
2 Narcotics Anonymous meetings per week
3 Chemically Dependent Anonymous meetings per week
One Dual Recovery Anonymous meetings per week
2 Adult Children of Alcoholics meetings per week
Which poses the obvious question: What’s the difference between narcotics and chemical dependence? And I have no idea. But if you think you might fit into either one of those categories, I bet both meetings would welcome you.
And who’s welcome at all those AA meetings? Anyone who thinks they might have a problem with alcohol. Most of the meetings are all officially “closed,” however, which means that no curious onlookers are allowed – though they are allowed at any of the officially “open” meetings you might find in the greater DC area.
In addition to all those meetings, the club is open for socializing from when it opens for the first meeting of the day (usually 6:45) until the end of the last meeting in the evening (either 8:30 or 9:30). So, lots of hanging out goes on there, as well as around the picnic table near the entrance.
That may seem like a lot of meetings, we aren’t done yet because there are dozens of other meetings nearby held other places, almost all of them churches. Click here for the great meeting search page by day, area and type.
How the Club Started and is Funded
According to news reports at the time, Greenbelt’s Step Club opened in 1990, thanks to the efforts of its co-founder and original manager, a poor soul who’d been hospitalized an unimaginable 30+ times for his alcoholism. No wonder the news accounts described him as a “thorn in the side of GB police.” But with a club nearby, he managed get sober and stay that way.
Clubs are an anomaly in the surprisingly unstructured, nonbureaucratic and volunteer-run world of AA. They’re independent of what AA structure there is (a central office in NY, and regional offices that have phone banks to help callers get help). The Greenbelt Step Club is supported entirely by member dues (just $5, all voluntary), and donations made at meetings (also voluntarily given, commonly $1-2).
How many steps ARE there?
That’s a little joke because if there’s anything about AA that’s widely known, it’s that there are 12 steps to the program. Not as well known are the programs based on variations of those 12 steps, like the dozens listed here on this impartial list.
For Help
Click here for a questionnaire that helps people decide whether they have a problem with alcohol. Or call 202/966-9115 almost any time to talk to a recovering alcoholic about your situation.
The 12 Steps and My Family
Don’t worry – if I were in recovery for something or other, I’d follow the tradition of anonymity and keep it to myself. But I think it’s fine to say that several members of my family owe their long-term sobriety to AA, so we’re a pro-AA family. Even a nonreligious relative found a home in AA despite its spiritual nature, thanks to the all-inclusive directive to find a god “as you understand him” (or her).
And then there’s the teetotaler in my family who actually knew Bill Wilson, the founder of AA. My dad was working as a clinical psychologist for the Army in the ’40s when his boss sent him to New York to pick Wilson’s brain about how alcoholics in the Army might be “cured” – or so they hoped. Before AA’s beginnings in 1935, there’d never been a successful treatment for alcoholism but my dad came home with the report that this new AA thing just might work. And that’s from a confirmed atheist and nonjoiner.