The beginnings of the Legacy Group as told by one of the co-founders My name is Bob Blakely and I'm an alcoholic! I believe that sometime in the spring of 1980 or winter of 1979 I was asked By Father John Stanley to help found an AA group that would meet at Trinity Episcopal Church. A woman of about my age whose name was Helen (I cannot remember her last name, if I ever knew it) and I were commissioned to get friends to come and form a new group and see if it would last. If I remember correctly we initially had three meetings a week in the basement of the church. We were given keys to the church to allow us to get in and fix coffee. At that time smoking was permitted in the church basement so we had smoking meetings. If I remember correctly we had a regular meeting and a perpetual "New" peoples meeting. That ultimately became a problem because a lot of people stayed in the "New" meeting and never graduated to the regular meeting. After a couple of years at the church we literally outgrew the facilities there and we rented a storefront on the corner of Bilglade and Lubbock. It was a defunct shopping center with a large parking lot and seemed ideal to our needs. We were very apprehensive about the rent and the utilities but we decided that if it was supposed to be then it would work. We drew large crowds for the size of the place and did some remodeling to have a larger meeting room. In the back was a kitchen and a drink machine. That was where the coffee was made. We also had another meeting room for beginners. After a couple or more years the people who owned the shopping center wanted to refurbish the place and we were asked to move across the street to the South Hills Christian Church. The church did ask us not to smoke and that became the Legacy Groups first experience with non smoking meetings (it wasn't received enthusiastically). We moved back across the street to another store front and then moved to Woodway and Trail Lake. I believe that is where you are today. As an old timer I am especially happy to see that Legacy is still going and helping people who are struggling with their alcoholism. |
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