These are some stories by a few of our members who have found how much being of service helped their recovery. Don’t get the wrong idea. You can’t do service in lieu of the Steps to get recovery. You can, however, let service start you on the road to sobriety, and from there you take the path of recovery. To learn more about being of service, visit MA12.org/Service.
Anyone Can Be Of Service
I still remember how much I felt at home the first time I walked into an MA meeting. Someone at the door welcomed me and gave me a big, warm hug. I found out they were the “greeter,” and it was their responsibility to welcome people as they came in the door. After a few meetings, the group asked ME to be the greeter! It was a simple but important job, and it got me back to the meeting week after week.
Eventually, I was asked to be the literature person; I made announcements about our literature and replenished our supply of pamphlets. I also made a point of coming early to help set up the chairs and staying late to put them away. When the world went online and we started having our meetings virtually, I would volunteer to be the timekeeper. Now that I have some years in recovery, I have done service at all levels: meeting, district, and MA World Services. But I have always preferred simple forms of service, such as being the greeter, setting up the chairs, being the timekeeper, etc.
Anyone can be of service at a meeting, no matter how much sobriety time they have. Someone with two days can help someone with one day by just showing them that it’s possible to get two days of recovery, and someone with one day helps us all remember why we’re here. Anyone can put their hand up when they ask for a timekeeper. Of course as we grow in recovery, we can do more service like volunteer to read the script at a meeting, or serve at a district or at MA World Services. Remember, even just coming to a meeting is being of service!
District Level Service
Within the service structure of MA, Districts bridge the gap between meetings and MA World Services. They are extremely important for effective communication throughout the fellowship and our collective recovery. I have been involved in meeting, district, and World service levels, and all are important. However, I feel that the benefits of district work are critical to the whole of Marijuana Anonymous.
The District has regular service committee meetings where Group Service Representatives (GSRs) come together to conduct business. To ensure that the message of MA is carried throughout the area, districts are generally composed of different subcommittees. These can include Hospitals and Institutions, Public Information, and Outreach, which mirror existing committees at the MA World Service level. Members of district subcommittees often also attend MA World Service committees to ensure group conscience, and to get and give support.
I first became involved with District 22 when it was suggested I consider being a delegate. Delegates are elected to represent their District’s group conscience at the World Service Level. This is important to the concept of equal and fair representation. The representative from the District also brings critical information back from MA World Services to establish transparency throughout the fellowship. I am a very introverted person and was reluctant, but did agree. The skills, experience, and knowledge that I gained has been an incredibly positive asset for my personal recovery. I have since become involved with a significant amount of service, and my role as a district delegate made it obvious to me that although I am very shy, I could do it!
Showing Up in a New Way
In my recovery, I have seen and felt the benefits of doing service firsthand. It has always helped me to step outside of myself, set aside my ego, and realize that—in helping others, I help myself. There came a point where I was having difficulty letting go of a service position I had held for quite a while. In the beginning, it gave me purpose and kept me showing up. Over time, I was surprised to find myself not enjoying the experience anymore, as it started to feel like a burden. I didn’t care to admit it, but I found myself becoming resentful of the role.
I kept pushing myself to go, but I was at the point where I considered abandoning my responsibilities entirely. Instead of quitting, I asked my sponsor for help. They suggested to me that in order to relieve myself of the burden of resentment, it was time to turn over my service position and hold a group conscience to elect another member to the role. I had stayed in this service position for so long out of fear—I was worried that no one else would be able to fill my shoes and “properly” keep things running the way I had.
In order for there to be growth, I knew I needed to show up in a new way. I became willing to Service Sponsor the next person and help them grow into the role. I released pre-conceived notions about how things “should get done” to make space for a new way of doing things—blending the way that I did things, with their new ideas and ways of thinking. This ultimately helped grow unity within the group, and it has turned into something I couldn’t have imagined on my own. I continue to trust in my Higher Power and the power of the group. Together we can do what we could never do alone!
Nominated into Service
At six months sober a Trusted Servant nominated me as secretary of my home group. I did not feel remotely qualified, although I was already responsible for the meeting’s phone list, but their faith gave me enough confidence to try. Then the pandemic shut down our in-person meeting location. Given the uncertainty we all were experiencing, we needed the meeting more than ever, and I didn’t want to let anyone down! We scrambled to get on Zoom, an app I’d never heard of at the time. But I learned all I could, and soon I was helping others get on Zoom. After coordinating twice daily meetings in my district, another member and I drafted a virtual meeting format script that spread across the fellowship. I was eventually nominated the first “Virtual Meetings Chair” of my DSC.
Some World Services Trustees in my district noticed my strong Zoom skills and when the time came for the annual World Service Conference, they asked me to help with some tech aspects. Observing our business Conference was fascinating—I love learning how MA works. The next year I volunteered again. With enough time sober to be eligible for the Trustee Third Legacy, I was elected as an Alternate Trustee. I began attending Board meetings to see how everything worked and toward the end of the year when a Trustee resigned, I stepped into the role of Secretary. I enjoyed that brief time being on the Board, so I participated in the Third Legacy again and again, ultimately serving a full four years. In every role I learned new skills, including interpersonal, technological, and even publishing!
Service also helped me learn something new about MA and myself, strengthened my recovery, and connected me with my fellows. I believe my higher power always had a plan for me that I could not see then. But looking back now, coming up on 7 years sober, I can see why everything that happened did, and how it all led me to where I am today. I have made life-long friends, and been able to make an impact through being of service. No longer do I feel scared, quiet, useless, or lonely. Through service I found all the things I was seeking through using: community, self-confidence, and a sense of belonging.
Stronger Together
Marijuana was impossible to shut out of my mind completely. It was as if there was a constant whisper, even after finishing the 12 Steps in another program. My story involves relapse, and each slip always started with marijuana; it was ever-present. Shortly after my one year anniversary, my sponsor called and asked me to meet a newcomer—at an MA meeting. I had never heard of Marijuana Anonymous. At that time in my sobriety, I was looking for more and wanted to give back. I wanted to be a sponsor, so I said, “yes!” My sponsor replied, “Great! It’s in three hours, here’s the address.”
I greeted the newcomer in the parking lot, and we headed inside. The meeting was in a rented room in the back, no bigger than a bedroom. Three people were already seated, and we took the remaining two open stools. First, I was wondering what sort of message there would be, what the book looked like—focusing on the literal and the material. But then the shares started. For the first time, that whisper in the back of my head settled down. The spoken words were the same, the Steps were the same, but the effect it had on me was different, like nothing before.
I immediately knew I was exactly where I was supposed to be. I had a unique opportunity to be of service to this newly formed group. For the next year, I only missed two out of 52 meetings. The chairperson from that first MA meeting has become one of my closest friends. They are there for me during the bad times and the good, including traveling to the MA fellowship Conventions together. Eventually, that one meeting grew, and by the end of my first year in MA we had started three other meetings in our metro area. The success of these meetings has come from prioritizing the newcomer and allowing the group conscience to lead. Through dedicated service, that whisper was nearly silent.
We now have five in-person meetings across our state, with our Saturday night group averaging 20 or more people. The growing pains started when we would run out of books, pamphlets, and phone lists. We needed help making flyers, hosting business meetings, and scheduling fellowship events. So we decided to form a Region! When we announced the first Regional meeting only a handful of people were expected to attend, but over a dozen showed up! Ready to be of service. The next step after solidifying our Region is to be ratified as an official District at the MA Conference. Forming a Region has helped to structure and support our meetings, strengthen our community, and in turn, bring love and care to the addict who still suffers. Becoming a District will add more service opportunities for local members, unite us with the worldwide organization, and ultimately grow the fellowship we crave by connecting addicts with other addicts.
If you told me this brief story three years ago I would have looked at you like you forgot to bring the lighter. Turns out Marijuana Anonymous was exactly what I needed to silence that whisper—to light the way to my new family and lasting serenity.
How Service Saved My Life . . . Twice
It’s called G.O.D.—the Gift Of Desperation—that’s what I came to MA with, and found hope… Hope that I could rid myself of a 38 year scourge. MA saved my life when I took my first service commitment in only the second month of attending meetings. I didn’t really know what a secretary did, and it didn’t really matter. All I knew was I needed something that would keep me accountable and coming back. So I put aside every doubt, judgement, criticism, and resistance I had about MA and kept coming back and found a life worth living. Saved by an opportunity that the fellowship calls service.
On Friday the 13th of March 2020, my wife died in my hands. I looked directly in her eyes as that glint became a glaze. It was sudden and unexpected. That night a family member, concerned for my well-being and sobriety, arranged for a fellow to take me to an MA meeting. I was totally numbed with shock. Lost in a thousand racing thoughts that were incoherent. I shared what happened while sobbing (like now as I write this), feeling like my life was ending. They embraced and consoled me—that was lifesaving in itself.
Three days later the Covid pandemic lockdown happened. Now it seemed my whole world had ended with this double loss. But then, and I don’t recall how it happened, someone told me that there were meetings online. After just a couple of meetings I was asked by a newcomer to be their sponsor. I said yes despite the grief because it’s what we do in this fellowship. Like my first time volunteering for service I didn’t know how to do it, recovery online, but I knew I had to do it.
That one sponsee quickly became ten. I learned how to run a Zoom meeting and was online or on the phone constantly. It kept me focused on the positive and out of the pity party. It became a salve for my grieving. All this service transformed me from hopeless to hopeful. It kept me from the depths of despair and saved my life again.
Keep coming back, find yourself with service, be active in the Twelfth Step, and receive the gift of a life worth living.
P–09 ©1993, 2026 MA World Services Conference Approved Literature
