On Sunday, April 21, 2024 we held our very first Back-to-Basics 12-Step Workshop at the Irvine Duck Club. We had approximately forty men, and one woman attend the workshop. Based on survey results, and comments, I would classify it a resounding success!

Q: Based on your experience today would you attend another workshop? 95% answered YES. That is an A+ in my books!

Q: Based on your experience today would you recommend the workshop? 100% answered YES. A+!

There was nearly a 50/50 split between fellows who had less than 3 months sobriety and those with more than 3 months sobriety. Seven attendees has less than 22 days of sobriety! The shortest sobriety was 3 days and the longest sobriety reported was 32 years. Special welcome to the newcomers!

Also of note was NavidD celebrating his one year of sobriety at the workshop. Congrats Navid!

The workshop slides can be found here. Navid’s 4th step spreadsheet can be found here. Thank you to the attendees, and everyone involved in making the workshop a success including the speakers: GaretM, NavidD, JeffS, and FrankS. Special thanks to GordonB for his tireless AV work, ThomasP for the inspiration, and the Orange County Intergroup for their support. Thank you to all who brought food, supplies, helped set the room up, put it back the way we found it, and filled out surveys.

We will fine tune the workshop based on the survey feedback we received!

Some attendee comments about their experience:

“It was like the first day of college orientation. My guided pathway through the steps!” –Matthew

“Really cool. Hopefully it will be scheduled once or twice a year. There was a lot to pull from all the speakers.” –Terry

“It made starting the steps less intimidating. I’m ready to start!” –David

“Really enjoyed it! Well done and thanks to the speakers and all who helped plan and facilitate. Would be helpful to make it more hands on. Possibly with more specific sample and examples of step work.” –Tom