Note: In order to be as helpful and inclusive as possible, some of these are repetitive as in “Turning it Over” and “Step Three,” which basically is turning it over, or in “Economic Insecurity” and “Money,” which encompasses economic insecurity. I’ve also bolded the topics that are, to my knowledge, slogans.
- Acceptance
- Act As If
- Action
- Addictive Personality
- Adversity
- Agnostics (We Agnostics)
- Amends Beyond “I’m Sorry”
- Amends, Making Hard Amends
- Anger
- Anniversaries
- Anonymity
- Asking for Help
- Attitude
- Attraction not Promotion
- Balance
- Being Considerate of Others (in and out of AA)
- Being Useful
- Big Book (Using the Big Book)
- Boredom with the Program
- (The) Bottom is Where You Stop Digging (you hit bottom when you stop digging)
- Breaking My Anonymity
- Bring the Body and the Mind Will Follow
- But For the Grace of God
- Carrying the Message
- Change
- Changing Routines, Changing People, Places and Things (to avoid drinking)
- Character Defects
- Choice
- Clarity of Thought
- Codependence
- Compassion
- Complacency
- Completely Giving Myself to This Simple Program
- Contempt Prior to Investigation
- Courage
- Courage to Change the Things I Can (Serenity Prayer)
- Cravings
- Cunning, Baffling, Powerful
- Decision Making
- Dealing with Difficult People
- Denial
- Dependence
- Detaching, Detaching with Love
- Disappointment
- Discipline
- Disease Concept
- Do the Next Right Thing
- Don’t Drink and Go To Meetings
- Don’t Quit Before the Miracle
- Drinking Occasions
- (A) Drug is a Drug
- Drugs (Problems Other Than Alcohol)
- Drunk Who Brought You In Will Take You Out
- Dry Drunks
- Easy Does It
- Economic Insecurity
- Ego (ego-smashing, Easing God Out)
- Eleventh Step Prayer (Prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi)
- Emotional Hangover (from Step 10)
- Emotional Sobriety (Emotions)
- Enjoying Life (Having Fun Sober)
- Expect a Miracle
- Expectations (Unreasonable Expectation, Pre-Planned Resentments)
- Experience (Sharing Our Experience)
- Experience, Strength and Hope
- Faith
- Fake It Till You Make It
- (The) Family Afterwards
- Fear
- Fear of Failure/Fear of Success
- Feelings and Emotions
- Feeling Different
- Fellowship
- First Drink Gets You Drunk
- First Things First
- First Thought Wrong
- Fixing Me, Not You
- Forgiveness
- Forgiving Others
- Forgiving Ourselves
- Foundation
- Fourth Dimension (from page 25 in The Big Book)
- Freedom
- Freedom from Bondage
- Friendship
- Fun
- Gift of Desperation
- Gifts of the Program
- God as I Understand Him
- Gossip
- Gratitude
- Greed, Gluttony, Having Enough
- Growth
- Growth through Pain
- Guilt
- Handling Failure
- Handling Success
- Happiness
- Happy, Joyous and Free
- Higher Power
- Hitting Bottom
- Holidays
- Honesty (Rigorous Honesty)
- Hope
- How do you work the steps?
- How easy does it (working the program, staying sober) get?
- Has has your concept of a higher power changed in sobriety?
- How Have You Changed?
- How Important Is It?
- How it Works (Twelve Step Recovery)
- Humility
- Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired (HALT)
- I Am Responsible
- Identify, Don’t Compare
- If it’s not practical, it’s not spiritual
- Improving the Quality of My Sobriety
- Insanity
- Insidious (Patiently Waiting for a Chance to Ensnare)
- Instincts
- Integrity
- Inventory (Taking My Own)
- Inventory (Taking That of Others)
- Isolating
- It Is What It Is
- Jealousy
- Joy, The Joy of Living
- Keep Coming Back
- Keep it Simple
- Keeping it Green
- Let Go and Let God
- Letting Go (of Outcomes)
- Letting Go (of the Past)
- Letting Go (of People, Places and Things)
- Life on Life’s Terms
- Literature as a Tool (Using the Big Book, Twelve and Twelve, meditations, etc)
- Live and Let Live
- Living in the Real World
- Living in the Moment, Living in the Present, Living in the Now
- Living with Myself in Sobriety
- Loss
- Love
- Meditation
- Meeting Makers Make It
- Meetings
- Mental, Spiritual and Physical Disease
- Mental Illness (Problems Other Than Alcohol)
- Moderation
- Money
- More will be Revealed
- No Pain, No Gain
- Nothing Changes if Nothing Changes
- One Day at a Time
- Organized Religion
- Other Addictions
- Pain
- Pass it On
- Patience
- Perceptions vs. Reality
- Perseverance
- Physical Illness (Problems Other Than Alcohol)
- Powerlessness
- Practicing These Principles in All Our Affairs
- Prayer
- Pride
- Pride in Reverse
- Primary Purpose
- Principles Before Personalities
- Priorities
- Projection (Thinking About Outcomes that are in the Future, Good and Bad)
- Progress, Not Perfection
- Progression
- Promises
- Rationalization, minimizing and justifying, self-justification
- Recovery (Getting Better)
- Regret (We Will Not Regret the Past, Promises)
- Relapse
- Relationships
- Relaxing, Relaxation
- Remember What You Would Have Settled For
- Remembering Your Last Drunk
- Remorse
- Resentment
- Responsibility
- Restless, Irritable and Discontent (RID)
- Restraint of Tongue and Pen
- Rituals of Sobriety
- Road Rage
- Rule #62 (from Tradition Four)
- Sanity
- Secrets (You’re Only as Sick as Your Secrets or Your Secrets will get You Drunk)
- Self Acceptance
- Self-Centeredness
- Self Esteem
- Self Pity
- Self Seeking
- Self-Will
- Selfishness
- Serenity
- Serenity Prayer
- Service
- Sex
- Sharing (talking or telling my story) at Meetings
- Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired
- Slips
- Slogans
- Sobriety Dates
- Spiritual Awakening
- Spiritual Axiom (from Step Ten, page 90, 12 and 12)
- Spiritual Part of the Program
- Spirituality
- Sponsorship
- Staying Away from the First Drink
- Staying in the Now
- Step One
- Step Two
- Step Three
- Step Four
- Step Five
- Step Six
- Step Seven
- Step Eight
- Step Nine
- Step Ten
- Step Eleven
- Step Twelve
- Stick with the Winners
- Strength (Sharing Our Strength, What is Your Strength?)
- Stress (Coping with Stress)
- Suggestions (Taking the Suggestions)
- Surrender
- Taking Risks
- Taking Things for Granted (before and after sobriety)
- Telling on Yourself
- “Terminal” Uniqueness – feeling unique can kill me
- Think, Think, Think
- This Too Shall Pass
- Time (Time Takes Time)
- To Thine Own Self Be True
- Tolerance
- Tools of the Program
- Tradition One
- Tradition Two
- Tradition Three
- Tradition Four
- Tradition Five
- Tradition Six
- Tradition Seven
- Tradition Eight
- Tradition Nine
- Tradition Ten
- Tradition Eleven
- Tradition Twelve
- Triggers
- Trust
- Trust God, Clean House, Help Others
- Turning it Over
- Twenty-four Hours a Day (one hour, one minute at a time)
- Unfinished Amends
- Unmanageability
- Using the Program Instead of Using Alcohol
- Using the Telephone
- Utilize Don’t Analyze
- Wait to Worry
- We of the Program
- What Convinced You That You Had a Problem?
- What is AA?
- What do You do to Stay Sober?
- What have you gained from the program?
- What outside forces keep you from drinking?
- When others are drinking (and potentially dangerous, what do you do?)
- Who supported you to get sober? To stay sober?
- Why Are You Here?
- Why did you get sober?
- Will power
- Willing to go to Any Lengths
- Willingness
- Wisdom to Know the Difference (Serenity Prayer)
- Wreckage of the Past
- Yets
Very useful. Thanks for taking the time. I’m sure compiling this list was quite an experience. Buona 24
THANKS…nice share.
Awesome! Just what I needed. Thanks for taking the time to put this together. diann p
This is a great example of the 12th step! Thank you for helping others help others. Thank you.
thanks for the great topics
KEEPING IT GREEN
Added. Thank you!
Thanks for your help. I am putting together a meeting for women based on our common solution. These idease will be useful!
Thanks for the topic list. I started a womem’s group several months ago. What we do is everyone puts a topic in the basket, the chair picks the topic from the basket & we all share on it. This list will keep us going for a while.
THANKS SO MUCH-THE LENTH OF SILENCE AT OUR MEETINGS WILL BE LESS NOW WHEN THE CHAIRPERSON ASKS FOR A TOPIC-WE’LL HAVE A DIFFERENT TOPIC ALMOST FOR EVERY DAY OF THE YEAR-GRATEFUL-STEVE S. CORTLAND N.Y.
I thought I would look through the internet to see if I could find a topic for my meeting tonight.As was said ,sometimes that second moment of silence can be a killer lol.Thanks alot for compiling these!I”ll look like a very thoughtfull drunk tonight. Please accept my appreciation for sitting down and putting these topics together.
Thanks again,Bernie
Thank You! I have been chairing a discussion meeting for over 2 years now and am always trying to think of “different” topics. This list had several different ideas.
A.A has been wonderful to me and i have lots of friends i have one question can the need for approval be a topic for a meeting that is one of my many character defects i have only been in a year dec 6 2008 is my sobriety date please let me know thank you ps going to meetings is a great stress reliever
These topics are wonderful! In May, I chaired my home group for my 24th anniversary, and I was so glad I had these!
Wonderful comprehensive and thoughtful list. thank you for the hard work – seems in all you do. I am chairing a 7am this morning and was stumped. Now I have MANY I want to use. Thanks.
how about entering the world of the spirit
I would like to thank you;so much for the wonderful topics.Ihave a bad memory as a result of brain damage from alcohol.and allways forget a topic for my aa group closed discusion meeting thankyou i put them in my favorites file.one day at a time.
I have heard there is a list of topics from the first early AA meetings that focused on discussion rather than the steps. Does anyone know where to find it.thanks elizabeth
I’m speaking tonight at a beginner’s meeting…..what a useful tool…..thanks so much for sharing
My husband and I have recently moved out of the country and are hungry to start a topic discussion meeting similar to the one we left back home.
This list has helped immensly.
Thank you from Mexico.
Every word a special one to me on my journey in recovery thank u xx
Thank you so much for this list it is very helpful to me.
Thanks. very useful
Thanks for taking the time to compile these. Very useful
Huge hit tonight! Friday before the Holiday; chose the topic expectations = guaranteed resentments disappointment! Excellent meeting. Thanks for PASSING IT ON!! xo
Thank you for the topics. I am writtin’ them on popsicle sticks so we can have everyone grab one and talk on that topic or just the chair pick one and we can share on it.
You are awesome! Thanks so much.
How about :Listen To Your Instincts”?
Thanks! I added “instincts,” since I’m not sure we SHOULD listen to our instincts. But instincts are certainly talked about in the literature.
How about Trust Your Intincts ie: I trust my intincts when my intincts tell me to stay away from People Places and Things that may bring me to a drink!
Excellent list, indeed.
Thanks for this list, using it for a meeting I’m chairing at the moment and bookmarked for future use too.
Thanks. How about Dr. Bob’s prescription: “Trust God, Clean House, Help Others.”
Thanks so much for putting this together… one of my character defects is procrastination… I’m chairing a meeting in an hour and
am suppoed to bring a topic… haha! God bless you!
I thought I would look through the internet to see if I could find a topic for my meeting tonight.As was said ,sometimes that second moment of silence can be a killer lol.Thanks alot for compiling these!I”ll look like a very thoughtfull drunk tonight. Please accept my appreciation for sitting down and putting these topics together.
Thanks again,Bernie
+1
Where does the phrase “gift of desperation” appear in the big book?
As far as I can tell, it does not appear there.
You have got to be an alcoholic, no one else would have this many suggested topics. Isn’t there one that say’s “keep it simple” on here? Just Kidding, thank you this will be very helpful.
wounderfull list of topics, very usefull
this helped alot(: <3
thank you so much for making this list. I totally panic when faced with leading a meeting and picking the topic. You’ve given me so many ideas.
My brother needs help he killing his self by drinking a lot. Our mom past in November 2011 and that the only way for him to deal with it but its killing him. He already have health issue .
I love my brother very much its killing me to see him like that Help.
Yvonne, I sent you an email that says: Hi Yvonne – you made a comment on my blog, but that’s really not the place for it. I know of nothing you can do to help your brother beyond going to Al anon. It takes time, you have to actually attend the meetings. But I believe that it will help, if you do it.
http://www.al-anon.alateen.org/how-to-find-a-meeting
Good luck to you.
SEX, I have yet to see a discussion about sex. When I suggested sex, everyone in the group thanked me for it. Each one had a story. After the meeting they shook my hand.
Added, thank you!
Thank you so very much. This helps me to help others.