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Running head: AA MEETING

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Alcoholics Anonymous Meeting Experience University of Akron

AA MEETING

2 Alcoholics Anonymous Meeting Experience

I decided to attend an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting at St. Mary’s Church on June 19th, 2019. The meeting was titled “Turn A New Leaf” and was open to the public, located in Wooster, Ohio. This was a very interesting assignment to me, as I had never previously imagined myself to ever witness an AA meeting in person before this course. From the beginning I knew I would feel slightly uncomfortable going to a meeting, considering I would not be there for the same reason as the others. I was worried what the people would say if I told them that I was only there for a school project, or if I should say anything at all. Were people going to ask me if I was an addict, or maybe they could tell I was not? All of these thoughts already have begun to highlight my underlying bias towards those who go to these meetings or believe they need to, even though I am in support of those suffering from addiction. It can be difficult to fully understand the unconscious thoughts and feelings you have on something until you are put into a situation to experience it, which is what occurred with me at this meeting. I had many ideas of what the meeting would be like, and what the people would look like. With the bias I already had towards AOD users, I believed I would see many lower class, possibly ethnic, unkempt people that were obviously struggling. Much of the bias I have towards these groups of people likely comes from television, where the meetings are often portrayed to be that way. I recognized that this was an inaccurate picture that I had come up with, and I started to think about the fact that I would see many normal, healthy appearing people that I would not typically think of to be there. When I first arrived, I scanned the room and took a mental note of the overall composition of the meeting. I do not remember perfectly, but I saw about 15-18 people, with at least two-thirds being women. I appeared to be the youngest person there at 19 years old, with the majority looking to be about 30-50 years old. There were one or

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two people possibly in their late 20s, and another 3 appearing to be 60+ years old. Around 12 people were Caucasian, 4 were African-American, and the remaining 2 seemed to be Asian. When I first walked into the meeting, I mainly expected to just walk in without talking to anyone or being greeted, planning on awkwardly waltzing around trying to figure out where to sit down. Instead, there was a nice woman near the entrance at a table with coffee and sugar cookies, who greeted me and asked if I was new. This helped me to feel welcome, like I was not intruding by being there. I did not mention that I was only there for a school project because I did not want her to treat me differently than any of the others to get the true experience. The woman lead me towards one of many metal chairs towards the back of the room and said something to me like “It’s okay if you’re nervous, everyone had a first time at some point.” When everyone sat down, I saw a person who seemed to be the lead at a table in the front of the room, making a few announcements and then beginning with talking about Alcoholics Anonymous as a whole. She stated something like, “Alcoholics Anonymous is for men and women to share their experiences and strengths to help other members recover from their addictions. The only thing you need for membership is a desire to stop drinking, and our purpose is to help alcoholics stay sober and help others reach sobriety.” She then proceeded with some kind of prayer that was relatively short, which many of the people around me happily recited along with her. I searched online for some of the words I remembered from it after I left the meeting, and it turns out it was something called a “Serenity Prayer.” Afterwards, she asked if anyone was new and I was extremely nervous to speak up, but I raised my hand timidly. An older male also raised his hand and she gestured towards him to say hello, then next to me. All I said was “Hello, my name is Brittany,” and everyone in the room proceeded to say, “Hello Brittany.”

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The real important part of the meeting begun when members started going up and talking about their own experiences with addiction. After the lead woman asked for a preferred topic idea, an older blonde woman suggested “acceptance.” She then asked that older woman (I will call her Amy) if she would like to share her own experience with the topic. Amy began with her personal addiction story to tell the crowd, stating that it all started at a young age where she grew up in a house with her father and brothers drinking whatever chance they got, even at family functions or work. She explained how her father ended up leaving her mom, leading to her suffering from depression as she began to go to parties and skip high school to drink with her friends. She said that should have been the first sign, with it beginning to affect her work to the point where she would have to go home and lost the rest of the pay for the day. If she would have accepted she had a problem, she believes she would have been able to prevent her drinking from getting worse. Eventually her boss took notice, having a talk with her telling her she needed to leave and get help, now leading to her being one year sober through consistently attending AA meetings. This story immediately reminded me of the biopsychosocial model of addiction we discussed in class, as it seems that her environment of being surrounded by her family and friends drinking along with her depression likely played a strong factor in her addiction. If she had not followed the path of AA meetings, I would have recommended her to counseling to gain a greater self-awareness with regard to the environmental factors and personality characteristics that led to her alcoholism (Fisher & Harrison, 2018, p. 45). After hearing Amy’s story, other members who had either stories of their current addiction or how they overcame one started sharing as well. Hearing the different perspectives and people from all different backgrounds caused me to gain more empathy for those even in the worst of situations, as people begin AOD use for many different reasons. When the meeting was over after multiple people were finished

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speaking about their experiences, a woman offered chips to people attaining different milestones of sobriety. One person received a chip that day for one year of sobriety, which made me think deeply about learning about addiction recovery and the importance treatment programs have on the discontinuation of use and relapse-prevention (Fisher & Harrison, 2018, p. 175). One major way my understanding of addiction increased with this assignment was my improved ability to see addiction from the AA adaptation of the disease model. This model has become a component of AA programs, following the belief that the disease of addiction is chronic and incurable, with no other drug allowing the addict to use again without risking a relapse (Fisher & Harrison, 2018, p. 40). My knowledge on addiction was also increased by the realization of how incorrect my own biases were, which has inspired me to learn further about addiction and the stigma surrounding it. I doubted the true effect an AA program could have on people I would meet in everyday life, which changed after I attended this meeting. Seeing members reach important milestones of sobriety and coming together to support other people opened my eyes to the importance of all different types of treatment approaches. Due to my lack of information on what an AA meeting was actually like, I probably would not have ever recommended anyone to use it and hindered my service as a health professional. This highlights the benefits of what we learn in this class in real life situations. I believe that learning to modify my attitudes and false beliefs to be less judgmental, as I have done with this situation, will help me in my future career as a mental health professional. I hope to continue increasing my understanding of addiction and be able to more effectively assist AOD users in treatment.

AA MEETING

6 References

Fisher, G. L., & Harrison, T. C. (2018). Substance abuse: Information for school counselors, social workers, therapists, and counselors (6th Edition)....