community

It is believed to be the oldest English-language Alcoholics Anonymous group outside the United States. In any case, the Ancon AA Group got together for non-alcoholic refreshments and friendship on the evening of Friday, November 11 to celebrate its 60th anniversary.

This group has between 30 and 45 members, depending on how one cares to count the folks who show up from time to time in addition the nearly three dozen regulars.

All of these men and women participate in AA because they feel the need to take control of their lives away from the bottle and help others facing a similar problem. Unlike many groups in the United States, none of those who attend the Ancon AA Group's meetings in a mindset of sullen, reluctant denial because a court has sentenced them to do so after a drunken driving incident. Many of those who come to the meetings have multiple addiction problems, so referrals and support to confront these compulsions is part of the mutual assistance that the group members give one another.

Alcoholics Anonymous is also well established among Panama's Spanish-speaking majority, and this birthday celebration took place as Panama's Spanish-language AA groups were holding their national convention.

Alcoholics Anonymous began in about 1934 in Akron, Ohio, when Dr. Bob, an alcoholic physician, began to hold meetings in his home with fellow drunks who had come to the realization that alcohol had taken control of their lives and the conviction that it would not be ousted from its dominant position without the help of a higher power. Alcoholics Anonymous has many of its roots in Christianity, but it isn't a religious or sectarian organization as such. In fact the avoidance of positions on controversies in society is one of the group's founding principles. Members do, however, take a 12-step program toward recovery, one important aspect is the realization that there is a higher power than the individual human being, and it is by putting this higher power in command that alcohol's grip on the individual can be broken and his or her sanity restored.

The old Canal Zone was a notoriously heavy drinking society, and as a response to the problems that came along with this culture, the Ancon AA group was founded in 1945. Across the street in Panama the movement also spread in Spanish, and there are more than 40 Spanish-language AA groups in the metro Panama City area today.

Besides the more than 30 regulars at the Ancon Group, plenty of English-speaking visitors to Panama --- an easy place to fall off the wagon into drunkenness or drugged stupor --- stop in at the group's meetings for fellowship and support. The group meets in Balboa on Mondays and Wednesdays at 8 pm, on Thursday nights at 7, on Friday nights at 6 and Saturday mornings at 11. There are always members ready to take calls for assistance. Currently the Ancon AA Group's contacts are Roy (628-2943), Raul (614-1513),  Becki (317-1501) and  Rick (617-8687). The group also maintains a website at http://www.aapanama.net, through which directions to the meetings can be had.