Sometimes recovery begins in the most unlikely ways.

After that landmark public AA meeting in Nairobi in December 1971, 15 attendees gathered again at the Intercontinental Hotel to form Kenya’s very first AA group. Among them was Daman G — unsure, desperate, and still drinking.

Just before his first AA meeting, Daman slipped into the nearby hotel bar and used 5 shillings — borrowed from the AA collection basket — to buy what would become his final drink. He returned to the meeting, sat down… and blacked out.

That act, strangely enough, became a turning point. Though it would take him three more years to maintain lasting sobriety, Daman went on to become one of Kenya’s earliest and most dedicated AA members. He stayed — even when meeting numbers fell to just two.

His story reminds us that recovery doesn’t always begin neatly — but it begins. And sometimes, the smallest, messiest moments become the ones we look back on with the most gratitude.

🕊️ And so we pass it on.