Alcoholic Anonymous Meeting

I attended an AA meeting with the Promises Group at St. Michaels Church, at 5pm on February 6th, 2017. There were around 30 individuals at this group; 25 males and 5 females. There was one individual, that had to get his paper signed; however, he stayed for the whole meeting and shared his story. A judge had ordered him to come to AA meeting due to getting many DUIs. This individual said he was very happy that he is a part of this AA group, and that they have become like his family.

AA member shares his experience more often than he gives advice. Madsen( 1974) refers to AA in terms of tools to aid in recovery from Alcoholism. (Zimberg, S, et al pg. 166)

In order to facilitate these kinds of results, the facility focuses on a variety of inpatient treatment programs that are designed specifically around the needs of the patients. Much of the primary residential treatment program is built around the 12-Steps of recovery. After a medically monitored detox, if required, the facility's counselors will use a variety of treatment methods to help patients identify issues and learn the coping skills they will need to avoid drinking for the rest of their lives. When apparent emotional or mental problems are creating additional issues, dual diagnosis treatment can be easily incorporated into the treatment process. Finally, the facility uses a very nice 4-day family program to infuse family members into the treatment process to help create a better support group for future

Additionally, many of the members attend other NA or AA meetings and reported feeling closer to those other groups. “I honestly don’t want to come back here, Andy is a dick, these women don’t have someone to take care of their kids, and since when did we decided we don’t allow kids. He isn’t the leader, this is a group, we all choose together all he cares is about himself” Steve spat with contempt. If we hadn’t been there for that meeting, we would have believed that the group was entirely loving, intimate and attached.

I have always felt that change only occurs when the person is ready to change, especially as it relates to addiction. While I still maintain this opinion, the way in which this meeting had an impact on my perception is that I know understand how a person may be soften to the idea of change, gain insight of need for change or personal conviction to change by means of a mandated experience. In other words, having to attended AA meetings by court order may inevitably guide someone with an addiction to a level of self-awareness where

AA Meeting Reflection Many people who have never had an addiction may not understand the difficulty of becoming better, and that is because we have never been in circumstances where our life depended upon a substance (Berry & Ramnath, 2013). However, for people who have had a substance addiction, the difficulty to becoming better is harder because they need to regain control over their thoughts and lives. According to the alcoholic anonymous recovery program, a twelve-step meeting is a very efficient program that helps people regain control over their thoughts and their lives. One vital part of this program is the twelve traditions and twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. Although the overall goal of this meeting is for members to stay sober while

Closed meetings allow only recovery addicts. The groups encourage members to come to meetings on a regular basis and to seek out an official (Curtin,

Attending an AA meeting was a new experience for me, although I had family and friends that had attended meetings they never told me what the meetings were like. Arriving to the meeting was different than what I expected. When looking at movies they would show dark rooms and sitting in a circle, completely different than what a real meeting is. But once I was there the lady in charge greeted me and introduced herself. I was surprised to see everybody being so friendly to each other.

For my site visit I decided to go to a Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meeting. The meeting I choose was held at St George 's Episcopal Church on 915 North Oakland Street in Arlington. The meeting was on Saturday February the 27th at 6:30 pm. Alcoholics Anonymous are based on a twelve step program designed to help people with their addictions. It is open to anyone no matter their religious affiliation, age, gender, etc. and supports itself through donations.

Alcoholics Anonymous is a healing support group with its primary purpose to help alcoholics stay sober anonymously and help other alcoholics achieve sobriety. The meeting that I have attended was the University/ Women’s group at 4021 Walnut St. The meeting was held in West Philadelphia in University City on Friday October 21, 2016. The meeting opens up with prayer and a spiritual meditation for guidance and power to get through recovery.

During all phases, the participants are required to attend Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous meetings (Circuit, 2010). During phase one they must attend a high number of these meeting per week and as he or she phases up, the number of meetings required decreases. In addition to this, the participants must also attend counseling and group therapy sessions (Circuit, 2010). The participant will be assigned a counselor and will meet with the counselor on a regular basis. If the counselor finds it to be necessary, the participant can be sent to a doctor for a mental health medicine evaluation and

The Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meeting at the Book Study Unity Club gave off a welcoming atmosphere. The environment was very family oriented and seemed to be a place of acceptance and redemption. Overall, the group process was extremely functional. There were a two leaders, one was the leader for the particular chapter the other was the leader of the particular meeting. In the beginning, the leaders both gave their background histories on how they were brought to AA.

Attending each 12-step meeting was interesting, yet frightening too. Surprised at how different the population was among each meeting. In the Alcoholics Anonymous meetings there were more of an older generation, where in the Narcotics Anonymous there were more of a younger generations. I noticed in the Narcotics Anonymous meeting there were a lot of people who were wearing ankle monitors from the justice center, but out of the three Alcoholics Anonymous (I know we only had to attend two AA meetings-long story on how/why I ended up attending three) meetings I attended there were only two people I recall seeing with ankle monitors compared to four or five to the one Narcotics Anonymous meeting.

Living Sober is a meeting affiliated with AA. The meeting was a combinations of going through the steps, reading from the Big Book, and open discussion. In the meeting I attended there was about 25 to 30 attendees. The room was filled with happy faces that seemed comfortable and truly at home. The groups members were all highly involved in every aspect of the meeting.

I have never been to an AA meeting before, and I had a completely different imagination of how a meeting takes place. I thought the meeting was held in a depressing state, dark, and everyone is sad/drunk. However, my experience was exactly the opposite of what I imagined. Even though this was the first AA meeting that I have attended, I feel like I have been attending AA all my life. The members are friendly, supportive, and not shy to express their proudness of being part of AA.