by Denise O.  

I have been present at the SMR meetings four times a week since August 2020. I had only been to a few face to face meetings in London before lockdown and hadn’t made the switch to London ACA on zoom for some reason. By some miracle I came across SMR.
Initially I shared that I felt like an intruder, pitching up at an American meeting. After a few weeks of feeling so welcome and tuned in to this new landscape of the heart, I felt more like an immigrant than an intruder. In search of a lost childhood. America, for a young girl of the 1950’s and 60’s from rural Ireland was an unfathomable planet, where only the lucky ones got to go to. To get Away.As a child,  I never imagined myself one of the lucky ones. However, I too did run away to San Francisco with my girlfriend in 1982. It was extraordinary. However, after a year she needed to return to Europe as she didn’t have the necessary work permit to practice medicine there. I decided to follow her back to London where we have lived together ever since. I have often wondered what kind of life I might have lived had I stayed.

Now, nearly 8 months into ACA/SMR I am having a second American awakening. AA and ACA are definitely America’s greatest gift to the world. I feel that I am in fact one of the lucky ones after all. Nothing in my life to date has given me the framework for understanding my own, my family’s and my country’s trauma that ACA is giving me.
And ACA for me is SMR. I have no need of other meetings. I am moved, humbled, enlightened and nourished each day I zoom in. I cherish the continuity at SMR. Having found a step group at this meeting, I felt my immigrant self was given a green card, permission to work alongside you all, contributing emotional and spiritual labour to help build our community. I call it my SMR Yellow Card.

It has been wonderful to watch it become a truly international community, where we all get to realise that trauma and healing transcends national boundaries and we create a new language of liberation. The feeling states that are co-created in these breakout rooms each day are unlike any I have ever experienced, in all the communities and contexts I have been part of throughout my life. And I know in my heart I would not be able to withstand the fear and trembling of sharing were it not for the courage and humility of my fellow travellers on the computer screen in front of me. Sometimes I feel like I’ve landed on Jupiter not America, it’s so unfamiliar and challenging. And terrifying and awe inspiring.

All this is made possible by the dedicated, generous and efficient service of the committee members and tech hosts etc. It’s been inspiring too to witness how when inevitable tensions arise, the community is held together in a bond of good faith.  I am currently very happy to just receive all this healing energy as compulsive care giving, fixing etc can so often be my undoing. When I feel healthy enough emotionally to offer service, I will do so in gratitude.

In fellowship, Denise O (London)