GaL-AA "Spotlight On Sobriety" 08/31/2025
- Steve N.
- Aug 26, 2025
- 7 min read
Updated: Sep 15, 2025
In this week's publication:
Click the link below:
From Our Archives Sept 1983
Living Sober with HIV
Experience
I chose sobriety on November 2, 2012. Before I got sober, I used alcohol to manage almost everything: loneliness, shame, stress from work, and the deep ache of living as a queer man with HIV. It worked for a while, or so I thought. But over time, it started to take more than it gave. I was showing up to my life only partly present and disconnected from myself and others. At first, I went to meetings near my home in Montebello, CA. Not long after, I heard about a weekly meeting in West Hollywood for people living with HIV. I decided to make the drive, and that decision changed everything.
At that meeting, I found my first sponsor and a group of people who understood what it meant to live at the crossroads of HIV, queerness, and addiction. The shame and fear that come with HIV are real, and alcohol might seem like a quick escape, but it always ends up making the pain deeper.
Though the Big Book was written long before the HIV epidemic, its core message about freedom from a hopeless state spoke deeply to me. Recovery became my way back to self-respect and true connection with others.
Strength
Sobriety forced me to look at every part of myself, including my sexuality. For many gay and queer men, bars and drinking aren’t just about alcohol; they are about sex, dating, and feeling like we belong. I had to ask myself hard questions: Would I feel lonely if I couldn’t hook up at bars? Was I really having fun, or was it all about the liquor? Being HIV-positive added another layer of doubt.
Through working the steps and leaning on my community, I began to heal my relationship with sex and intimacy. I realized that so much of my drinking wasn’t about pleasure; it was about numbing old wounds from stigma, rejection, and the fear that maybe I wasn’t lovable without a drink or a crowd to make me feel wanted.
Sobriety taught me that real connection doesn’t need a drink or a performance. I learned to be present and let people see the real me.
My sobriety also became the backbone of my advocacy. As a queer man living with HIV, I have served on Ryan White Planning Councils and spoken at national conferences like the U.S. Conference on HIV/AIDS. Recovery gave me the courage to speak up, bridge gaps, and help build spaces where people can show up fully—not just as patients or statistics, but as whole human beings.
Hope
After more than ten years sober, I try to live one day at a time. Sobriety isn’t just about not drinking; it is about living with purpose, showing up for my community, and helping others do the same.
Being queer, living with HIV, and being in recovery means I still face different kinds of stigma. But these challenges have helped me grow stronger and more compassionate. Sobriety taught me that real change is possible and that healing is something we do together.
Today, I choose connection over isolation and hope over fear. Some days it is easier than others, but every day it feels worth it.
Jax K.
Palm Springs, CA
2025 Survey Next Steps
Thank You for Your Voice!
A heartfelt thank you to everyone who took the time to complete the 2025 GaL-AA Member Survey. Your input means the world to us.
This survey wasn’t just about gathering data—it was designed to guide real action. With your responses, we now have a clearer picture of what matters most to our members, where misunderstandings may exist, and how we can better serve our Alcoholics Anonymous LGBTQ+ recovery community.
What’s next? Our goal is to identify key themes, common questions, and areas for growth. We plan to share a summary of findings—and our responses—in upcoming newsletters.
This is part of our ongoing effort to listen, learn, and grow together. Thank you again for being part of that journey.
GaL-AA Executive Committee
From Our Archives
(New series, more coming soon)
IAC Newsletter – September 1983 (IAC is the former name of GaL-AA)
This article brings us back to a time before the term LGBTQ+ existed, when “gay Alcoholics Anonymous” was still a contested topic within the ranks of AA. I hope you enjoy this first article in our "From The Archives" series.
The full original copy of the September 1983 IAC newsletter is available for download at the bottom of the article.
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MAIL TO A BRITISH MEMBER: People sometimes ask us what we do. We answer a great variety of enquiries, especially from centers where the idea of a visible gay and lesbian presence is being resisted. The following is from one such answer.
Dear N:
Many thanks for your letter requesting experience in dealing with public information and the place of gay/lesbian groups within the larger AA community. My analogy for lesbian/gay groups is that of foreign-language groups: we speak the same language. People who have no trouble with a French or Italian-speaking group have trouble with us. There is an outside issue at work in these continuing discussions of our validity and this is prevailing homophobia. Like wolves in sheep's clothing, I've seen this bigotry all dressed up as self-righteous posturing under the cloak of the Traditions. As the material in our information package indicates, gay/lesbian groups in AA are an integral part of the total picture. We have no secrets and any AA member may attend our meetings with no conditions attached. (Otherwise it is not an AA meeting.)
Conventional wisdom in dealing with a balking Intergroup is to continue to send donations, request listing in the meeting book, elect Intergroup reps and attend Intergroup functions like any other group. This is virtually universal practice in all North America.
Regarding Public Information I enclose a set of General Service Guidelines. I also enclose an advertisement the Toronto groups run in a local lesbian/gay newspaper. The “Tradition Eleven” chapter in the Twelve and Twelve is helpful. Articles and advertisements in the gay/lesbian press do not link us to any “outside issue” any more than renting space in a church advocates that denomination. So I would feel perfectly free to work with the gay/lesbian press as I would the “straight” press within the same guidelines.
Eric F.
Chairperson, IAC
FROM A GSR: The following is from a letter sent by a General Service Representative to all groups and individuals in his state listed in the IAC World Directory and to the editor of his state’s Area Newsletter. We publish it here as an example of what can be done to further the approval by the 1984 General Service Conference of the proposed gay/lesbian pamphlet.
Dear Editor:
I am not writing this with my GSR hat on: I am speaking for myself. I do believe, however, that these thoughts and feelings are shared by many other recovering gay alcoholics.
On June 7, I heard our delegate, N, report on the events of the 1983 General Service Conference. The matter of a conference-approved pamphlet for the homosexual alcoholic generated more controversy, more emotion, and took more time than any other issue at the Conference. It was resolved that a specific pamphlet draft be presented to the delegates before the next Conference so that “an informed policy decision may be made in 1984”. I would like to address the need for such literature to be approved and published in the timeliest manner possible.
I recently had the opportunity to see a videotape of a speaker meeting in Atlanta. An old-timer shared his story of more than 44 years of association with AA and 33 plus years of sobriety. Back around 1949, he and some other recovering alcoholics from Boston approached Bill W. with much trepidation to request his approval of a special interest meeting. Bill had to ask several times what the interest group was before he was able to say, “homosexual”. Bill readily gave his approval to the first gay meeting in AA; cautioning only that the focus always be on recovery from alcoholism. Which today remains true of every gay meeting I’ve attended: the focus is recovery.
It is my firm belief that Bill W. would extend his blessing to a pamphlet for the homosexual alcoholic.
For AA to carry the message to homosexual alcoholics, it is necessary to speak to the special circumstances that have affected them. Just as the rapport between one alcoholic and another is something beyond what usually exists between an alcoholic and non-alcoholic, the communication between homosexual alcoholics is likely to be greater. In our efforts to reach out to the still suffering or newly recovering alcoholic who also happens to be gay, literature addressed to him or her will be of great value, just as it has been for other interest groups.
I would like to share some facts surrounding this issue:
It is generally assumed that the homosexual population is about 10 percent of the total population.
Several studies have indicated that the rate of alcoholism among homosexuals is about three times the average.
Individuals and groups of sober gay alcoholics in AA have been expressing a definite need “to carry the message to the alcoholic who still suffers”, through literature addressed to the homosexual alcoholic.
AA has conference-approved literature for special interest groups. Some of these are directed to a population smaller than the population of homosexual alcoholics.
In its almost fifty year history, AA has overcome barriers of gender, race, color, creed, and age — it is now time to overcome the barrier of sexual orientation. Tradition stresses placing “principles before personalities”, and that should include “principles before sexualities”. Each hurdle put behind us does indeed “help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety”.
The program and fellowship of AA is not one of exclusion, it is one of inclusion. The proposed literature is needed as a means of carrying the message — as an attraction to those alcoholics who “desire to stop drinking”, and who happen to be homosexual.
I feel that if the issues are known, and if AA is to truly follow its traditions and to achieve “our primary purpose — to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety”, then approval of this literature must be supported.
It is my hope that the trusted servants of Alcoholics Anonymous, under the sponsorship of a loving God, will recognize this express need and will respond to it by approving literature for the homosexual alcoholic.
When anyone, anywhere, reaches out for help, I want the hand of AA always to be there. And for that: I am responsible.
GaL-AA's "Spotlight On Sobriety" features personal stories and reflections submitted by members and friends of the fellowship. The views expressed are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily represent those of Alcoholics Anonymous or GaL-AA.
Your GaL-AA Team
