Personal Narrative: My First Alcoholics Anonymous Meeting

The purpose of this paper is to discuss and reflect on my experience attending an Alcoholic Anonymous meeting. Alcoholic anonymous (AA) was created to help individuals effected by Alcohol collaborate and support each other during their time of need. All AA meetings are structured differently. However, there are only two types of meetings: opened and closed meetings. During my experience, I attended an open meeting where anyone can come regardless of a diagnosed alcohol problem or the level of experience one had with participating in such meetings.

Robbie J., a 19-year-old white male and first-year college student, suffered a significant brain injury 6 months ago as a result of a car accident. Robbie had been partying at a friend's house and left about 1:00 a. m. Driving home, he missed a curve in the road and rolled his car. Robbie's parents knew that their son drank "occasionally," but they never thought he had a "problem." They had purchased a car for him and warned him of the dangers of drinking and driving.

AA meetings are for people who are struggling with alcoholism which means they have an addiction to the consumption of alcoholic liquor or the mental illness and compulsive behavior resulting from alcohol dependency. I believe that these meetings are not helpful and in some cases cause harm the people who are trying to change and no longer alcoholics or drug addicts. These meetings do not have high success rates in fact they have very low rates. They have a 12 percent success rate for people who are sober for ten years and these meetings also have a very high depression and suicide rates because of their 12 step program. The AA meetings limit their success target only alcoholics as its main priority and unless you have a problem with alcohol you cannot be a member of the AA. I believe that if you have any type of addiction you deserve the help you need especially if you are looking for a change and want to better yourself. These AA

In my experience of observing Alcoholics Anonymous group, it was a great experience. In my experience, I notice a lot of things in the Alcoholic Anonymous group. The first thing I notice while observing the group session is they have Alcoholics Anonymous bible that read a section every session. They read the same passage that discuss that how important it is to keep all information that is said in the group confidential. They were vey clear with that information. In my first session, the group started with a silent prayer, and read Alcoholic announcement. Next, the reader introduced the group leader. The group leader stated that goals that needs to be accomplish in this group which is stay sober day by day. The group leader also discuss in the group session about alcoholism. The group leader stated that alcoholism is a disease, and alcoholism progress and a chronic disorder. It affects the individual physical and mentally. Alcoholism is incurable and fatal. The group leader was very humorous and stated that many people who are nonalcoholic called alcoholics weak, crazy, and a sinner.

Alcoholism is a chronic brain disease that affects all walks of life and does not have any bounders (Gossop, Stewart, & Marsden, 2008). I choose to attend an Alcoholic Anonymous (AA) meeting since this disease is prevalent among adolescents and adults. The meeting was held in the first-floor forum at Pilgrim Congressional Church in Queens New York. The goals of the AA meeting were stated explicitly by the leader conducting the meeting. The mission of the organization is to maintain sobriety by helping alcoholics achieve recovery. The organization provides clients with relevant materials such as pamphlets and flyers and states that all information shared in the meeting will remain confidential and will not be shared with anyone. The statement of anonymity was read to the members at the beginning of the session to ensure confidentiality.

I attended an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting at a church in Henderson. Going to the recovery meeting was a very interesting experience. I have heard good things about Alcoholics Anonymous because my mom used to be an alcoholic. She has been sober for more than 15 years now and has said that Alcoholics Anonymous was very helpful step in her recovery. The meeting was different than I expected. I expected a small group of people sitting in a circle and telling their stories and it was very different from that. It was an extremely positive place. There were people ranging in ages and people ranging on length of sobriety. Some people there have been sober for over 25 years and some people had less than a week

Before the meeting, I thought only people from lower socioeconomic status or unemployed people were alcoholics. People in the meeting dressed well and looked healthy. They didn’t look like the alcoholics I have seen in the movies. The meeting was a mix of male and female, young and old. To start off the meeting, everyone in the room introduced themselves as “My name is ______ and I am an alcoholic. Everyone else in the room then says “Hi _____.” I introduced

The Diversity University event was not what I expected it to be. In fact, I had no idea what it was about at all. I literally went around campus to see if anything exciting was going on. I was curious and I saw a promotion board outside of my residence hall. Immediately, I walked over to the Rayburn Student Center where the event was taking place. I walked into the conference hall and there was a man speaking, Monti Washington, a motivational speaker. I had no idea what was going on. For the first 10 minutes my eyes where practically shutting down until Washington invited the audience to turn to the person sitting to them and say the words “You don’t look like your story.” At first I was only hearing these words. I had no idea what I was saying

One of the first misconceptions that I had about the twelve-step meeting was that the meeting was going to be like the group therapies that they show on television, where everyone sits in a circle to share their stories and then when the meeting is over, the people approach you to give you support and to tell you that you are not alone. However, after attending the meeting, I came to the realization that the misconceptions were incorrect, because, after attending the meeting, I came to realize that this view was just part of my media-induced imagination. Surprisingly, the meeting that I went to was more like a family gathering than a group therapy. My second misconception was that I had was that the people attending the meeting were going to start having serious withdrawn symptoms, and I was scared that during the meeting, one of the participants was going to have of those episodes where the get so angry that they may want to hurt someone. Yet, during the meeting, no one had any serious withdrawn symptoms because the members, who were at this AA meeting, had been sober for more than a year or

Going in to the meeting I was terrified and felt very awkward. I did not want the members to think I was intruding or that I was there to judge. Once I got in the room, my whole outlook changed. I immediately felt comfortable and welcomed in the environment. There was one small moment of discomfort when one older member started making nasty comments to a very young member because he was “talking way too much”. The older man stated, “The thing that will save you, is if you shut up”. I found this to be very rude, as did many of the other members. I, however, did not say anything because it was not my place. Other than that short moment, I really enjoyed this meeting. In the end, it was beneficial to me because of my family history with alcoholism. It really opened my eyes to the struggles my family members have faced. There was always a chance for me to become an alcoholic due to the history, but I have been very lucky. Hearing the stories from these members made me realize that depending on alcohol will never an option in my

The NA meeting had a guest speaker named Adam, the most surprising thing about meeting were candor and humor evoked by the speaker. Adam acknowledged that he has been addicted to drugs for seventeen years, and this behavior started when he was in the 7th grade. Adam was genuinely outspoken and humorously shared being in and out of treatment facilities over 28 times costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. The group really identified with the speakers story, and this was exhibited by laughter and comments from the crowd.

Alcoholics Anonymous was founded in 1935 by Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith in Akron, Ohio. The first chapter of The Big Book tells how Bill Wilson was introduced to the concept of using a faith based, group support program to provide the mental and emotional support needed to manage Alcohol Addiction. The main purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics achieve sobriety. The program is unique in that each chapter is self funded, develops their own meeting format. I attended an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting on Thursday, October 6th

I believe this because of what I observed during the meeting, everyone seemed very open and nonjudgmental. Also the younger people in the meeting seemed very eager to get well or stay well. At the end of the meeting they gave out coins to people that have been sober from 30 days all the way up until multiple years. Every time people went up to get their coin, they were given a standing ovation and gave so much support, you would see people’s faces just light up during that process of getting the coin. The other people in the room made them feel proud of themselves for staying sober for that long and not giving up. One guy David really stood out to me, on Tuesday he celebrated 12 years sober, when he went and got his medal and stated that he was 12 years sober the room immediately congratulated him and told him to keep up the good work. It made me feel like the people there treat each other like family not strangers, and help each other overcome obstacles. Also at the very end of the meeting, while walking out I noticed people talking to the new people that were either new to Alcoholics Anonymous or new to the group at St. Joe’s. They were very welcoming to them and gave them hugs and congratulated the new members for coming. It just made me feel like this group actually helps the members change. This Alcoholics Anonymous group seemed like a very kind and supportive

I am still not fully recovered and I most likely won’t ever be, there will always be that little voice inside my head. I started my journey with addiction and recovery the summer before freshman year.

I used Dialectic Behavior Therapy (DBT) techniques with some of my clients. I was not trained in this therapy but was familiar with the idea of being in the here-and-now. This technique worked for my schizophrenic client by keeping her focused on what was happening each day by writing in a journal and distracting her from what she thought had been happening in her past. I was able to use Art Therapy with the client I had with PTSD, depression, and suicidal thoughts.