Alcoholics Anonymous

I KNOW, I KNOW!!! Most of you are thinking "ohhh fuuuck, what a downer!" But I am here to prove you wrong.. I know that AA gets a bad rap. Everyone makes fun of the twelve steps, everyone thinks AA people are religious zealots, spiritual freaks, hippies, maybe they eat babies?

Yes, I will admit that the alcoholics in the program act like that sometimes (sans eating babies), but if you have an alcoholic in your family, you might be able to level with me. AA has saved my dads life. It has also saved my family's life. Another thing I love about the program is that it is open, sincere, and accepts everyone. There are a lot of people in AA who aren't religious at all. The step says "we made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him" meaning that you can be spiritual in any way that you want, if at all.
So every year on Memorial day weekend, my family gets together and goes to an AA get together called "Woody's Pig Roast" and every year there is a different theme. The first time I went in 1999 it was "Pigstock" and this year it was "Hogwarts." What makes this camping trip fucking amazing are only a million different things. I will name a few:

• 5,000,000,000 gallons of the best coffee you have ever had in your life
• Hot bikers EVERYWHERE
• "Tent City"

• HUGE chili feed
• HUGE pig roast
• All age dances every night in the barn

• Campfires
• Happy, smiling faces everywhere you look
• Harley's roaring
• More cigarette smoking than you have ever seen in your life
• All night campfire meetings
• Love and fellowship

Every year I go and every year it keeps getting better. It's the best time that I have ever had not drinking and the people that I meet there every year amaze me more and more everytime I go. Like my biker friend Robert who got in an accident about 9 years ago. He lost his short term memory and tells the same jokes over and over. I heard this one 8 times this year and 5 times last year:

"Hey, did you know that they are coming out with 'Divorce Barbie?'"

"They ARE?!"

"Yeah, she comes with all Ken's shit"

His favorite thing to do is to look at you right in the eye, smack himself on the side of the head and watch in delight as you scream in horror when his right eye shifts toward his nose.

I suddenly need a drink.