[callingforthesun]

hi everyone,
my dad's having his 10 year anniversary of sobriety on the 18th. i would like for him to have a 10 year medallion. his sponsor, who was the one who passed his own medallions to my dad, passed away a few years ago, so he has no one to pass one down to him.
how can he get one? does he have to go to an AA meeting to get one? would he have to do any speaking? he's really shy. i want him to have a memento.
thanks,
calling.

[splitimage]

Does your Dad go to AA? Does he have a group that he goes to regularly? If so then he could ask them to order a 10 year medallion for him, and he could choose whoever he'd like to present it to him. He wouldn't have to speak, but he would have to get up in front of the group so that everyone could clap. Big anneversaries are also usually announced at other groups so often more people than normal will show up at the meeting to support the person getting the medallion and to see that the program really works. Quite often the group will have a "birthday cake" for the member.

If your Dad isn't active in AA at the moment, or doesn't want to go the whole medallion ceremony route, you can order medallions on-line or via the post from Hazelden. Online they're hazelden.org They're a big treatment centre in the US but they also publish a ton of recovery oriented books and make medalions marking different lengths of sobriety, so of them can even be customized with the person's sobriety date. They're not super expensive either.

I think it's nice that you want to do something for your Dad to mark the occassion. 10 years is a big accomplishment.

--splitimage