In addition to being alcoholic, I was a karaoke junkie from the very beginning (back in '91 or '92). I wasn't the type of person who would just learn one or two songs and that was it... I sang literally thousands and thousands of songs. At one point I was asked to be a karaoke host, which was the perfect job for an alcoholic singer because I could drink on the job and the drinks were free!
Well, after I got the DUI and had to quit my other job driving a bus, someone asked me if I had my own equipment because she wanted me to do a party at her house. I had been going to A.A. for a couple of months at that point, and I decided to take a leap of faith. I cashed in my retirement and used some of the money to start my own business.
I knew there must be other karaoke lovers in A.A. and wanted to do something for them as well - within a month after getting everything together, I found an Alano Club that had just started up and they were interested. Now I host sober karaoke there every Sunday night, and have for the past 6 months. I don't charge anything, but occasionally the owner throws a few bucks my way. It's definitely a service position that helps keep me sober - knowing that if I go back out, there would be a lot of disappointed people if I stopped doing the shows.
I'm pretty grateful for it all, especially since I had thought I would have to wait till my daughter turned 21 to sing with her but instead she gets to come to my shows now at age 14.
FS, Wow! That's good stuff. I love Karaoke but like you said most of it is played in bars which I don't frequent these days. I would attend it at an AA club though...
FS-That's awesome. I do kareoke at home, and have been to bars prior to sobriety, waiting all night to do it, feeling I need to be good and drunk first, and then chickening out because I realize I'm too drunk to take it seriously. I'd love to come to sober kareoke sometime. You're in Wa, right? Let me know what city the Alano club is in, if you don't mind. The social anxiety is getting better all the time, so I can now see a day when I'd try it. Don't know if I can sing for #$@%, though. I only do a few songs at home, and if my cats could talk, they tell you if it's screachy or peachy.
We held our Barnsley and Penistone AA and Alanon post Christmas aprty on Saturday. Good food, good venue, over 100 people of all ages came and we had a Karaoke /Disco.........I was surprised at how many people had a go. No I didn't join Av in Flowers of Scotland, just no time......I always believed I (along with anyone else) would need to be just drunk enough to do it, but not so.....lot's of people said how much they enjoyed it, but the best was the civvy (i.e. Normal Drinker) who said she hadn't seen so many people enjoying themselves so unself-conciously since she was a kid.
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It's not having what you want, it's wanting what you got. BB
