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About Technology in Alcoholics Anonymous Forum

The forum consists of over 3,000 AA members who share an interest in the use of technology to help carry the AA message.

We welcome all to our community and hope you’ll find useful information here as well as opportunities to share your questions and experiences in either carrying our message of recovery or supporting those individuals and organizations who carry our message.

While many of us are used to using and supporting technology, a lot of us “have no clue” (or fewer clues…) around computers and devices.

We range in recovery time and service from a few days to multiple decades. Some are average AA members while others are District and Area officers, committee chairs and members, from Intergroup Staff to Trustee – all are welcome and encouraged to share.

We hope to share our experience as well as our needs and questions about how and where to use technology in our AA experience and our service entities

About Technology in Alcoholics Anonymous Forum

 A.A. members use the Forum  to share ways to technology for accomplishing the primary purpose of A.A. We range from technology experts to complete novices just interested in the subject. All are AA members or support AA technology, and all are welcome. If you are not sure what a forum is, see this description.

To join the forum, sign up or email: info@tiaa-forum.org.

You can come here to:

  • Share your experience about using technology in A.A.
  • Ask questions about how to use technology in A.A.
  • Just follow the many discussions to see how technology is being used in A.A.
  • Share your progress as you explore or develop technology in support of A.A.

About Technology in Alcoholics Anonymous Forum (TIAA) site

This site serves both as a Reference, both for those who have interests in topics concerning the use of technology in providing AA services and those who are already members of the TIAA forum community.  The portion of the site that is available without joining our community serves as a tool that highlights subjects that are trending, subjects that are important, and subjects that may be most helpful.

Here you will find sharing about AA members experience with websites, video conferencing, email, phone systems, and more.  It is distilled from conversations on the forum where members ask questions and share their experience.  We also share links to other sources of shared experience.

We do not offer “official” or definitive answers, each AA entity is, of course, free to implement or not implement technology as they see fit.  If you have other experience using technology, you are invited to share that experience on the forum so that others can benefit.  If you have questions about a use of technology, you can ask them and get help on the forum.

About Technology in Alcoholics Anonymous Forum Organization

The TIAA Forum intends to operate as a Tradition 9 “service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve.”  As such we have rotating leadership, are self-supporting through member’s contributions and are responsible to our members.  We are not a part of AA as such, nor are we affiliated with The General Service Board of AA or GSO.

We have our annual membership meeting online in December of each year. Our Board meets quarterly, and we have a working Admin team that provides technical support and community management.

Legal & Governance

  • Status: We are a Colorado non-profit association and an IRS 501(c)3 non-profit.

  • Membership: Every forum member has a vote and a voice in the operation of the Forum.

  • Meetings: We hold our annual membership meeting online every December.

  • Leadership: A Board of Directors meets quarterly. An active Admin Team handles technical support and community management.

A Brief History

In 2013, attendees at the first National AA Technology Workshop (NAATW) discovered the immense value of connecting with tech-interested peers. They wanted a way to continue these conversations between annual workshops.

At the 2014 NAATW, five volunteers agreed to build a year-round sharing platform. By year’s end, they launched the forum with nearly two dozen participants. At that stage, the system remained informal. One founder personally created and funded the initial website.

Membership grew steadily through word of mouth. The small founding team used trial and error to refine the platform. By 2017, the forum reached 700 members, proving itself as an effective communication tool.

The team realized that relying solely on a few founders risked the project’s long-term health. Consequently, we registered as a legal entity with the State of Colorado and the IRS to establish our current formal structure.  Eventually, in order to ensure greater reliability, security, and stability, the Forum was migrated to the Discourse hosting platform and services.

Instructions for Completing this Form

Name:

The name you use here is not verified and only used to control for spam and bot submissions. It will not be tied to your account. You can create and edit a profile disclosing the account name and information you wish to expose to the community (not publicly visible outside the forum) when and after you join.

Email:

Email where the invitation to join will be sent. This will also become a secondary way of logging in or recovering your password. We recommend a personal email address (e.g. your_name@example.com) instead of a “positional” email address (e.g. webmaster@your_intergroup.org) unless you intend for you membership to rotate with the person holding the position in the future. This email address can be changed after you join if you wish to change it by editing your profile information.

Affirmation:

By the group conscience of the members, this forum is only open to members of AA and those non-members of AA supporting AA services (e.g. Intergroup offices, AA service structure, etc.).

Topic Interests:

If you are interested in conversations in more than one  technical topic area (e.g. web sites, answering services, virtual meetings, etc.) or have a general curiosity about AA discussions in general (e.g. topics above and beyond technology like committees and group dynamics), you would probably want to select the default “General” option.

If your primary interest is in Archives only, you probably want to select the “Archives” option. Note that with either option, you will still have access to all topics on the forum but with the “Archives” option, your “home screen” will automatically place you in the “Archives” category where most of those conversations happen.