8
It is the purpose of the Bridge Street Token
Club that 111 Bridge Street will always remain available for suffering and
recovering alcoholics and the associated family groups. The large downstairs
meeting room will seat 50-60 people around the long center table and walls.
Less than a year after we moved into our new AA home, meetings were being
held with standing room only crowds.
In 1999, C.H.I.P.S has grown to the point that
meetings are held each day, with multiple meetings several days a week. The
New Hope AlAnon group meets several times a week in their upstairs
facilities at 111½ Bridge Street.
Weddings of Group members have been
celebrated, and wedding anniversaries observed “at the Bridge”. Recovery and
growth oriented seminars, and meetings are often held “at Bridge Street”,
with those non-AA specific groups renting from the BSTC. Derby Parties and
other festivities for members of AA and AlAnon are frequent. 111 Bridge
Street has hosted numerous AA district meetings. Token Club Members and AA’s
alike just hang out. Sometimes live music crosses the Singing Bridge and
echoes down the Kentucky River Gorge, created by musicians who belong to the
building in some fashion.
Every few years, the rumor goes about that the
C.H.I.P.S. Group began because of a ‘resentment’. Hopefully, this history
will forever eliminate that myth.
9
The C.H.I.P.S. Group is known for each member
having a sponsor, and each member working the Twelve Steps, following the
instructions in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Members of the C.H.I.P.S. Group are very
active in all areas of Service work. Many members deliver greetings from The
Best Group In The World as invited speakers, both to other groups and from
the platforms and stages of conventions throughout the nation.
The C.H.I.P.S. Group teaches and maintains
strong adherence to the Twelve Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous.
It is, perhaps, because of the original
foundation in the Three Legacies of Unity, Recovery, and Service, that
during all the moves and changes of the early years, the group stayed
together, and there was never a cross word spoken.
Even though the group as a whole never
consciously decided to take a third step, it appears the C.H.I.P.S Group
turned its will and life over to the care of God as we understood Him, and
He brought us to where we are today.
If you should be a reader of this history, and
would like to attend the once nomad group now called C.H.I.P.S, we warmly
welcome you to 111 Bridge Street, Frankfort, Kentucky.
You can’t miss it: George M. painted the AA
Circle and Triangle on the window, and proudly added the acronym C.H.I.P.S.
