At the AA West Essex Home Group - we aim at all times to provide a safe, happy, joyous and free atmosphere. We wish to surround each and every newcomer with all the support and friendliness you need on arrival into the AA Programme. 

If we are not your Home Group - just please kick back, relax and let us enjoy serving you! We love to welcome visitors from other AA home groups - feel 'at home' with us!

Our desire is for AA West Essex to be a vibrant and welcoming recovery community where newcomers can 'land' and become grounded with us. A place that you can keep coming back to, as you begin your journey and adventures in recovery from alcohol. 

Why adopt a group as my 'Home Group'?

There are as many reasons why Fellows will adopt an AA group as their 'Home Group' as there are members in the Worldwide Fellowship. Generally speaking, the adoption of a home group comes about for some of these reasons: 

• You were greeted warmly and made to feel welcome. 
• It's the nearest meeting, or set of meetings, to the place where you work. 
• The group's meetings are conveniently close to where you live - or furthest, but within practicable commute to where you live. 
• You love the 'vibe' of the others who attend meetings there. 
• It's the format you most resonate with. 
• It's where you met your Sponsor. 
• You see some inspiring service being given and you want to be part of it. 
• You see lots of examples of experience, strength and hope around you. 
• The meetings have a certain 'spiritual' experience that you want to keep tapping into.
• You like the way the chairs and the rooms are arranged. 
• You like the venue.
• You like the lighting and ambience. 
• You like the snacks on offer.
• It's somehow the meeting that has stood out for you out of others you've attended. 
• They do great social and fellowship stuff
• It's the group of fellow alcoholics where you have felt safe enough to open up and share about everything. 

It will be for YOU to decide if you like us, and if you want to be in UNITY with us and join our Common Welfare collective adventures. 

Stay with us 6 meetings, to decide if you like us enough. We will then invite you to join the 'Home Group'. This is your invitation, and we will be glad if you accept. Then you will have full access to grow into service and join-in with Group Consciences. 

Some more information on Home Groups...

The leaflet "The A.A. Group…where it all begins" (2018) says this of Home Groups:

"The A.A. Group — the Final Voice
of the Fellowship

“Alcoholics Anonymous has been called an upside-down organization because “the ultimate responsibility and final authority for world services resides with the groups — rather than with the trustees, the General Service Board or the General Service Office in New York.”

“Twelve Concepts For World Service Illustrated”
The entire structure of A.A. depends upon the 
participation and conscience of the individual 
groups, and how each of these groups conducts its 
affairs has a ripple effect on A.A. everywhere. Thus, 
we are ever individually conscious of our responsibility for our own sobriety and, as a group, for carrying the A.A. message to the suffering alcoholic who reaches out to us for help.

A.A. has no central authority, minimal organization, and a handful of Traditions instead of laws. As co-founder Bill W. noted in 1960, “We obey [the 
Twelve Traditions] willingly because we ought to 
and because we want to. Perhaps the secret of their power lies in the fact that these life-giving communications spring out of living experience and are rooted in love.”

A.A. is shaped by the collective voice of its local 
groups and their representatives to the General 
Service Conference, which works toward unanimity on matters vital to the Fellowship. Each group 
functions independently, except in matters affecting other groups or A.A. as a whole.
 

A.A.’s essential group work is done by alcoholics 
who are themselves recovering in the Fellowship, 
and each of us is entitled to do our A.A. service in the way we think best within the spirit of the Traditions. 

This means that we function as a democracy, with 
all plans for group action approved by the majority 
voice. No single individual is appointed to act for the group or for Alcoholics Anonymous as a whole.

Each group is as unique as a thumbprint, and 
approaches to carrying the message of sobriety 
vary not just from group to group but from region to 
region. Acting autonomously, each group charts its 
own course. The better informed the members, the 
stronger and more cohesive the group — and the 
greater the assurance that when a newcomer reaches out for help, the hand of A.A. always will be there.

Most of us cannot recover unless there is a 
group. As Bill said, “Realization dawns on each 
member that he is but a small part of a great whole. … He learns that the clamor of desires and ambitions within him must be silenced whenever these could damage the group. It becomes plain that the group must survive, or the individual will not.”

WE ARE GLAD THAT YOU ARE HERE. KEEP COMING BACK! 

We are not a glum lot!