CAP Auditorium
1153 Air Base Blvd., Montgomery, AL 36108
The Chapter 9 Group meets on Saturdays and Sundays at 1:30 p.m., both open discussion meetings. These meetings are frequented by newcomers still in treatment for alcoholism and other addictive disorders. They are always in need of solid sobriety to share experience, strength, and hope.
History:
The Chapter Nine Group began in the early 1980s with a handful of recovering alcoholics who’d gotten a taste of sobriety during a 28-day stay at what was then the Meadhaven treatement facility. For some ten years the group met in the Meadhaven auditorium.
In the early 1990s, Baptist Medical began to remodel Meadhaven, and so the Chapter 9 group began a search for a new meeting place. A larger facility was quickly found a block away, at the Rotary Hall of the Easter Seal Rehabilitation Center. Attendance swelled until the Wednesday night speaker meeting would sometimes exceed one hundred. In November, 1995, Easter Seal management needed to use the Rotary Hall during the time Chapter 9 was meeting.
An ad hoc committee was formed to find a new home for the group. Three sites were identified: the first had once held an A.A. meeting, but it had closed; the second was in rural south Montgomery County — it was large enough, bu the consensus was that it was just too far out to sustain membership or attract alcoholics from the surrounding area; the third was the newly-built Chemical Addictions Program (CAP) auditorium.
Heated debate arose over the proposal to move the group to Montgomery’s west side. With time running out at Rotary Hall, the steering committee decided to make the move to the groups present location. This location makes Chapter 9 the western-most meeting in Montgomery; the only meeting west of Interstate 65. It is also squarely in the heart of what many consider the least desirable part of town.
On Saturday, January 6, 1996, Chapter Nine held its first meeting in the CAP auditorium. What followed was a period of evolution. Due to Chapter 9’s new location, many who had felt comfortable on the Southern Bypass were intimidated by west Montgomery’s reputation for crime and violence. Attendance fell dramatically. But a handful of alcoholics stayed and carried the message to clients in the CAP residential program and to members of the surrounding community. Most importantly, the handful of drunks stayed sober themselves.
Meetings are still attended by resident clients of CAP, but an increasing number of people from the surrounding community are attending, some driving as much as 30 miles to the west end of town.
The P.O.S.T. Newsletter, May 2002
The Chapter 9 Group was first listed with GSO on February 1, 1982. At that time, meetings were held at 1:30 pm on Sundays and 8 pm on Wednesdays at the Meadhaven Baptist Medical Center. Marvin M. was the first GSR and there were approximately 35 group members. The group first appeared in the 1982 A.A. Directory.
G.S.O. Archives