Conscious Contact Group Meeting Observation and Analysis
This paper showcases my observations and analysis of the Alcoholics Anonymous meeting I attended for observing group dynamic and the way a group meeting works. This meeting, called a “Conscious Contact” meeting, is a weekly meeting that focuses on the development and incorporation of a spiritual practice as a means of building the foundation for a peaceful and fulfilling life, promoting a positive way of thinking and support members through the journey moving forward. Prior to the start of this meeting, I reached out to the facilitator and introduced myself as a social work student in my second term at Simmons College. We discussed the nature of the assignment
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The Conscious Contact group meetings are open to the public and the meeting schedule is published online on the Inter Group Alcoholic Anonymous of New York website. There are plenty of group meetings held in all five boroughs of New York City and in various neighborhoods to make it accessible for all. When walking into the room I felt extremely nervous and conscious of myself and I kept thinking of being as unobtrusive as possible in my observations to not offend anyone in the group or disrupt the group dynamic with my presence as a foreigner. However, I was shocked by the atmosphere of warmth, togetherness and openness that the group had and everyone was quite welcoming of my presence and had no trouble introducing themselves to me or having me observing the group and taking …show more content…
Watching group members openly share their deep concerns, collaboratively problem solve and guide one another through this process even while I, an unknown presence in the group, was among them is a testament to the power of group work and mutual which fostered their confidence and willingness to help one another as they helped me complete this assignment. This observation has given me a newfound appreciation for group work and given me excitement at the thought that I may come to facilitate a group in the
The group that this writer attended this week was an Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A) open group that consisted of thirty-two individuals. The date of the meeting was on Tuesday, December 1, 2015. The group started out with one facilitator opening the meeting up. He read the serenity prayer and covered the 12 steps related to the premise of A.A. This took no more than the first five minutes of the meeting. One of the members then took the floor and spoke as the featured speaker talking mostly about how his life has been turned around since joining A.A. and that life couldn’t be better.
Fabian Castaneda Mrs.Kehrmeyer Contemp. Comp April 25, 2015 The Problems With AA 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.
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
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.
I chose this particular group because it was an open meeting and they welcomed anyone. The man running the group, was a member himself, and was very welcoming. The meeting started with the AA promise and 12 steps, which I believe they start every meeting with. There was not one specific topic focused
On Saturday at 12pm, I decided to go to the Alcoholic Anonymous meeting at 822Cne 125 Street, Suite 111 North Miami, FL. It was the closest location near me that was open to Non-alcoholics. Upon enter this building, I had to stereotypical view on how this meeting would look like and be. And these stereotypes were foster by Television shows. The clean version would be everyone sitting in a circle, introducing their selves as everyone in the room respond back in unison, ‘‘Hi whatever that person name is’’.
My initial perception of the members in the room is that some members may be shy to disclose their stories, but was amazed that everyone came forth in the room to discuss their shortcoming. Furthermore, I did not have any stereotypes perception about alcoholism since I am aware that alcoholism is a disease that affects the brain. My understanding about alcoholism was confirmed by the various client verbalization of their stories and problems associated with
Encounter group is a group of “seekers” and “normals” who engaged in face to face interaction to improve self-awareness and interpersonal skills. Encounter group has a variety of experiential groups such as human relations groups, training groups, sensitivity groups, and personal growth groups just to name a few. One of their goals is to strive for change and growth within
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.
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
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.
For this reflection assignment I attended an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. The AA meeting I attended was at St. Joe’s Education Center in Ypsilanti at 7:30 pm. As far as the demographics of the group: The number in attendance was about 60 people I would say, it was very packed surprisingly to me. I did not expect it to be that many people there. When I think of an AA meeting I think of a small meeting with maybe 20 people that are a close group not around 60.
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.
Introduction To date I have completed three classes and one group facilitation exam for this semester. The aim of this assignment is to demonstrate my personal and professional learning for the duration of the module. It will discuss the definition of group work; how I planned for my group exercise; it will outline my learning as a facilitator and observer for a thirty minute exercise. I will use Bruce Tuckman 's five stage group development model to outline the stages of the group process.
Much discussion is devoted to the literature regarding group work as it remains an integral part of the social work field. Group work is important as “the need to belong is one of the most basic and powerful human needs as well as the most social” (Ashford, & Lecroy, 2008, pg. 140). Group work is found to be an effective intervention and has become a major treatment modality in the mental health services (Knight, 2017; Clements, 2008). This intervention has been found just as effective as an individual intervention (Knight, 2017). Groups have played an instrumental part in transforming how the social work field thinks about the helping process for clients.