One of San Diego’s most valuable and often unrecognized community organizations, the Live and Let Live Alano Club, is prepared to celebrate its 20th anniversary with a gala dinner on Saturday, Jan. 31, at The Center. The celebration will include a keynote speech from Bevan Dufty, of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, and will be honoring Deputy Mayor Toni Atkins, Carla Coshow of The Flame and District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis. Most importantly, the gala will be an opportunity to re-introduce the Alano Club to the community.

“They can expect find out who the Alano Club is,” said Frank Lechner, vice co-chair of the gala. “We’ve been around for 20 years and a lot of people are unfamiliar with what the Alano Club is and how it’s been providing a safe environment for 12-step recovery meetings for a long time.”

When they first opened their doors 20 years ago, the Alano Club was serving close to 100 people a month, now over 1,000 people pass through the club’s doors every month. In addition to the tremendous growth in members over the years, the club has also seen its mission change as well.

“When it originally opened it was mainly for alcohol,” Lechner said. “But now it’s for NA, CODA, ALANON, Overeaters Anonymous, Nicotine Anonymous, Overeaters Anonymous, Marijuana Anonymous. There is even a transgender meeting that is held there.”

As the club has grown to encompass more issues it has also found ways to deal with addictions by developing new messages and evolving the format of meetings.

“It’s gotten broader because awareness is greater in our community with crystal methamphetamine and other drug abuse,” Lechner explained, “I think the majority of the people you find who hang out around the club have dual addictions, like crystal addicts and alcoholics. Where it used to be just alcoholics, now it’s kind of the dual addictions. The overall mission is to try to help facilitate meetings that are going to address both concerns.”

In addition to celebrating the 20-year milestone of the club, the gala will also showcase how the club made changes in the past year to manage the growth and increased operating costs. While the club has traditionally been funded through membership dues and donations from organizations or businesses including the Gay Men’s Spiritual Retreat, the Gay and Lesbian Times, the Imperial Court and The Flame, this is the first time the club will be reaching out to the community as a whole, seeking larger donations and contributions.

“The reason that we’re moving in this direction is to bring more awareness to the mainstream community,” Lechner said. “We’re facing a thousand dollars a month in rent increases and this gala will help take care of that rent increase for this year. This is a very big step for us, and we are hoping for a big win here.”

As a part of it’s growth, board members and staff at the Alano Club have been undergoing new training procedures. New policy manuals have been written and the club recently secured a $20,000 community development block grant through the help of Toni Atkins’ office to use towards the purchase of a permanent home for the club.

The club is honoring Atkins for her support, including the $20,000 grant towards the purchase of a future home for the club. Coshow, the owner of The Flame and a long time supporter of the club and District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis are also being honored.

“Carla’s been a long time supporter of the club and she typically held a birthday party for herself and did it as a fundraiser for about the past 11 or 12 years,” Lechner said. “Bonnie Dumanis is being honored as our first lesbian District Attorney, but also for her support for recovery. She’s obviously in favor of what we are trying to do and helping to educate out community.”

The Alano Club’s 20th anniversary dinner will be held on Saturday, Jan. 31, at The Center. Doors open at 6:00 p.m. and tickets are still available. Call (619) 813-2787or (619) 691-7967 for more information.