First off, thank you all very much for replying to my post yesterday. Your thoughts, opinions and encourgment were all appreciated.

The meeting was held in a catholic church 10 miles from where I live and it started at 7:30pm. I arived at 6:45pm, yes, 45 minutes early because there was no way I was going to walk into a room full of people I wanted to be the first one there so I could try and settle my nerves before it began.

At 7:00pm the first car arrived and it was a lady, maybe 60 years old and I thought theres no way she's an alcoholic she must be there to clean the church or something so I waited for someone else to arrive. The next person to arrive was a guy, maybe 40 years old wearing a suit. I couldn't imagine he was an alcoholic but he was the person I decided to walk up to and ask if this was where there was an A A meeting taking place tonight and he said yes my name is ****** and I'm an alcoholic. I replyed with hi, my name is Shaun. He asked me if this was my first meeting and I said yes and straight away he introduced to everyone who turned up who in turn all shook my hand and introduced themselves and praised me for turning up to my first A A meeting.

At this point it was about 7:10pm and he took me inside and made me coffee and just asked me a little about why I decided to come to my first A A meeting. I told him, I've been an alcoholic for the past 17-18 years and I've exhausted every other avenue, counselling, therapy the doctors, I've never been to A A so I've decided to give it a shot.

At around 7:20 pm we all sat around a table where everyone was talking amoungst themselves. At this point, *****, the guy who I introduced myself too to begin with and is the organiser of the meetings took my phone number and I gave him mine, he is now my sponser and he made it very clear that it doesn't matter if it's 2 in the morning or whatever time of the day, if I feel like a drink, ring him!

The meeting began at 7:30pm on the dot, as I learned last night A A meetings start on time, exactly on time.

Last night was an overwhelming experience for me so I'm doing my best to remember exactly what happened because I was a bag of nerves but I'll do my best.

When the meeting started a lady asked if anyone had anything important to say that they wanted to get of their chest before we started and nobody did so she began. She began by introducing to me eveybody and telling them all that it was my first meeting, they all said hello and then she explained to me that I did not have to say a thing and there would be absoloutly no pressure for me to do so.

I'm so glad she introduced me to the group because that meant i didn't have to sit there and say to everyone...hi, my name is Shaun, I'm an alcoholic and this is my first meeting. It's not the admitting I'm an alcoholic I have a problem with it's speaking in front of people because of my anxiety. So the fact she introduced me and I didnt have to introduce myself helped immensly with calming me down a bit, I'm glad she did that.

We began with a reading from the big book (which I must get a copy of). After that the room was asked if anyone had anything to share. During the next hour and a half 3 people choose to share some strories, one man and two women, who all mentioned me and praised me before they began or during their share.

The meeting ended at about 9:10pm with a reading of promises from a volunteer which was then followed by a prayer. Before they all said the prayer aloud I was told it did not matter if I believed in God or not or for that matter if I even joined in with saying the prayer, she just said if you look at God as anything Shaun, just look at.. G...O...D.. as "getting of drink".

When the meeting ended we all cleared the chairs and tables away and washed the coffee mugs up before we left.

So that was it, my first ever meeting. It was great to hear peoples stories of there alcoholism. There was about 15 people there, men and women, young and old, rich and poor.

I never been around or seen such happy, vibrant, caring people who were all laughing and joking. I'm so glad I went.

It's nice to know I'm not the only with a drink problem and that there's complete strangers out there who will welcome you with open arms and do everything in their power to help you remain sober...amazing!