ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS AUSTRALIA IN HONIARA, RE-VISITING PROGRAM

Members from the Alcoholics Anonymous Australia are currently in Honiara to re-visit an AA program established eighteen months ago.

AA, or Alcoholics Anonymous is a global fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength and hope with each other to solve their common problem and to help others recover from alcoholism.

According to its preamble, AA’s primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety.

A member of the visiting team, Filomena says the team is here to review the progress of the AA program they established at the Correctional Services of Solomon Islands in Honiara.

“Last year I came to the Solomons with another AA member to set up the program also in our prisons here in the Solomons and while we were here we started a meeting for alcoholics anonymous for the public, and now it’s been running for 18 months, so we came back again to revisit and to see if we can establish it here a little bit longer then maybe we can take it out to other provinces as well and

Another member of the team, Tony, says there are now about 20 Solomon Islanders in the AA program in Honiara and they are happy to see many locals in the program.

“There’s about two and half a million people sober around the world and it’s in about a 175 countries and the program is growing. Sometimes a bit quick in other countries while in others it’s a bit slow, but the beauty of the program here is that the members here are locals and not expats. A lot of other countries have a lot of expats and it’s good but it’s better if the locals are involved because they can spread the message better and they stay don’t fly away like the expats do, so it’s a pleasure to be here and we’re really happy that the local group is growing well, I believe there’s now about 20 members which is fantastic and I think it will get better from here.”