Need Directions? Here is a Good Orderly One.

It is strongly recommended that people stay out of relationships for their first year of sobriety. While the U Haul joke is funny, addiction is serious business. Here's somethings right out of our literature, p. 119 of the Twelve and Twelve

A.A. has many single alcoholics who wish to marry and are in a position to do so.  Some marry fellow A.A.'s. How do they come out? On the whole these marriages are very good one's. Their common suffering as drinkers, their common interest in A.A. and spiritual things, often enhance such unions.

It is only where "boy meets girl on A.A. campus," and love follows at first sight, that difficulties may develop.  The prospective partners need to be solid A.A.'s and long enough acquainted to know that their compatibility at spiritual, mental, and emotional levels is a fact and not wishful thinking.  They need to be as sure as possible that no deep-lying emotional handicap in either will be likely to rise up under later pressures to cripple them. From the essay on Step 12, Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, p. 119

The sad reality is, that when 2 newcomers unite, usually one or both will be drunk within a short time. G.O.D. can stand for Good Orderly Direction, and staying out of relationships for your first year of sobriety is a good direction to follow. Give yourself a gift, your best possible chance at sobriety, and let the other newcomer have their best chance too.