Fryeburg Living Sober Group
Wednesday's 6:30 pm
Science Wing of Fryeburg Academy
Route 302
Fryeburg
Open/Beginner's/Living Sober


This history was written by three of the original wives ... Horace H.'s wife, George G.'s wife and Mac's wife.
 
Six members, who started in  the North Conway, New Hampshire Group, originally started the Fryeburg Group of AA.  The first member was Horace H. followed by five more from the Fryeburg area.  They decided to start their own group so the first meeting was held in North Fryeburg, in Horace H.'s kitchen.  All the spouses attended this meeting as well.  It was called the North Fryeburg AA group.  The first meeting was in December of 1952.  They met there for a while and then met in the library in North Fryeburg until moving to the old Fryeburg Legion Post on Portland Street.
 
The original six members were Horace H., Reggie P., George G., Leon B., George D., and Mac.  All original members are deceased now.  They held three open meetings and one closed meeting each week.  The closed meeting was on Sunday night.  All the members attended the open meetings with their wives as the wives found they benefited from the program too.  They all traveled many miles to other groups in the early days.  A group from Portland used to come down regularly to help them get on their feet.  The same group helped to start the Bridgton group as well.  Both groups were started in the same year 1952.
 
A 10th anniversary meeting was held after moving to the old Legion building on Portland Street and the name was then changed to the Fryeburg Group of A.A.  It was an open meeting and members of the community were invited to attend.  We had a very large attendance by AA members and just community members.  The townspeople knew very little about this new Program and so many people came.  Several other groups came and it was a great event.  The group first moved to the American Legion Building on Portland Street in 1955, where it remained until they moved to the Congregational Church vestry on Main Street.  The next move in 1979 was to the American Legion Hall on Bradley Street in Fryeburg, the next in the year 2000 to the Fryeburg Health Care Center and finally in 2002 we made the move to the Fryeburg Academy Science Building.  The time was then changed from 8:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.
 
When the meeting moved to the Health Care Center, the format of the meeting was changed to a Living  Sober meeting for beginners.  It still remains that today.
 
Horace H. and Mac traveled to the State Prison in Thomaston to help start a group in the prison called the Ledge Group.  Lots of hard work was put into this AA group and it continued for many many years.
 
We had no Al-Anon in our early years.  We wives had our own get-togethers the nights the men had the closed meetings and that was a great help for us. 
 
We believe that the first woman member of the group was a young girl named Rita C.  More women later followed her.
 
One event in the early years was on one of the first 4th of July when everyone was wondering how he or she could get past it without drinking; Mac invited everyone to come to his place and have a picnic.  So many people from several other groups came as well.  There were many many more happy events back then and many difficult nights and days of helping each other to stay with the program.
 

(Updated - December, 2003)