In August I was able to spend some time in Eastern Europe. I had a chance to attend several English speaking A. A. meetings while there. One was in Zagreb, Croatia. It was a holiday week in that country and I was told that most of the regular members were out of town, so it was a small meeting. I said I was glad that the meeting was still being held and indeed felt lucky that it was. And I added that I felt that we were the lucky ones! There was another American at the meeting. He said that his Croatian wife and he had just moved there a couple of weeks before. This was the first meeting he had been able to attend since moving. He told me that the comment ‘we are the lucky ones’ held a lot of significance to him. He said that about nine years before during his early attempts at sobriety that he had really struggled. He had tried a few A. A. meetings thinking that it would likely be his last. As soon as the meeting ended he bolted to his car in the parking lot. Someone tapped on his car window. He thought, “Good grief! Did they chase me out here?” He rolled down the window and a man smiled and said, “We are the lucky ones.” He answered, “I’m miserable. How can we be the lucky ones?” Later he recalled thinking, ‘I want to be one of the lucky ones!’ Those were his first words to the man who became his sponsor for the next nine years. He said that he felt adrift with his recent move. He had spoken with his sponsor by phone once since being there, and was looking to get settled into A. A. in Croatia. He said he was grateful to see another American in recovery. We talked for a while about how good it was to be able to be sober. That meeting meant a lot to me. I really believe that we are the lucky ones! – Jeff W.