Two years ago, the Twin Ports recovery community faced a crisis.
One of the region’s longest-standing meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous, the Saturday night open “speaker’s meeting” that had been held for years in the auditorium at the Miller-Dwan Clinic, had lost its meeting home. Without a large place to gather, it appeared as if the big, popular meeting might have to be discontinued.
“We knew right away how important this meeting is to people in recovery,” said Dennis Cummings, Executive Director of the Duluth Bethel. “We made a decision to step up and volunteer.”
Two years later, the speaker’s meeting is going strong, starting at 7 p.m. every Saturday night. Though attendance varies, Cummings estimates that between 80 and 120 people attend the meeting every Saturday in the Bethel’s gymnasium. Staff members and residents, as well as meeting volunteers, get the gym set up with folding chairs, a lectern with a sound system and, of course, coffee.
“Our gym is the perfect place for a big meeting, and this is just another way that the Bethel can continue its mission of supporting our community in recovery and healing,” Cummings said. “Not continuing an important and popular AA meeting in the Twin Ports on a critical night–Saturday night–was not an option. We were happy to offer our facility, which has been leading the way in this work for 142 years.”
Cummings and others at the Bethel also like that the meeting provides an opportunity to bring more people inside the Bethel to understand its mission, its history and its continuing work.
“We’ve been here for almost a century and a half, but many people drive by every day and still don’t know what we are or what we do,” he said. “By opening our doors to the Saturday night meeting, it gives us one more way to tell our story.”
For more information about the Saturday night speaker’s meeting, please call 218-722-1724.
