Alcoholics Anonymous Meeting Essay

The Alcoholic Anonymous meetings that I attended were both located in Chandler Arizona. The first meeting I attended was on Thursday May 28 at 1 pm, it was held at Chandler Presbyterian Church the address, 1500 W Germans Rd. Chandler, Arizona 85286. The second meeting that I attended was held on May 29, 2015 at 11 am it was located at a place called the Get It Together Hall, address 393 W Warner Rd. Chandler, Arizona 85224. The first meeting that I attended had more males than females and the average age was about 45-50. The second meeting had an equal mix of males and females and the members appeared much younger, the average age was probably 25-45. Both meeting were set up pretty much the same, using an open forum. The meetings would began with one of the members reciting the Alcoholic Anonymous pledge. Then other members would read announcements about the meeting and go over important rules for the members to follow.

Going to these kinds of meetings is something that is quite simple. You find out where and you just show up when it is convenient to you. There's no signing in, you don’t have to pay anything, or make appointments. There are no meddling questions, no commitments. Your confidentiality and privacy will be appreciated. You won’t be met with a mandate to come back to any meeting. You can go to multiple or as little as you wish. Many have no idea what to expect in their first meeting. For some the idea can be quite intimidating, so you will be relieved to find that your fears will be unwarranted. AA meetings are stress-free, welcoming and open.

On Tuesday, November 21, 2017, I attended an Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meeting at the Chandler Lodge, a sober living facility for men that was established in 1960. The facility is fairly decent but can use some renovation. The racial mix was a combination of Hispanics, Caucasians, with a few Asians and African Americans. The gender mix was a combination of males and females, with a few more men than women. There must have been a total of fifty people in attendance. The capacity of the room could hold about one hundred people.

The Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meeting that I attended was held at the Alcoholics Alana Club in Anaheim, California on Thursday. The meeting started at 7:30 in the evening, though many members gathered earlier to smoke and mingle outside. The members were a mix of Caucasian and Hispanic individuals that ranged from early 20s to late 60s. They seemed to be over lower socioeconomic status (SES), and the majority of them had tattoos and piercings. This particular meeting was a speaker meeting, so the meeting began with the leader welcoming everyone and announcing the people visiting from other states, as well as people who shared that this was their first meeting. He then called up a couple people to read certain chapters of the AA book. Another individual then volunteered to be the ‘10 minute speaker’, and briefly shared his story and how the 12 steps helped guide his recovery. The treasurer then passed around a donation basket and handed out sobriety chips, and a 10 minute break followed. After the break the guest speaker shared his story for the next half an

Most of these people had families, friends and a very successful career. They had what I eventually would like to have and yet their lives collapsed when they started using alcohol as their escape route for stress. These stresses were due to a loss of a family member, their jobs or just their everyday lives. Some of them were young women, who looked as what I would call normal and this made me think to myself many times during the meeting that I could easily be one of those people. I had felt stress before and know how difficult it can be handle without falling into a bad habit. Even though their addiction had no excuse in my eyes and I believed it was wrong, I now felt sympathetic towards them instead of judgmental. I was able to actually understand what they were going through and admire their strength for asking for

When alcohol becomes to take control over your life, it is time to seek help because one cannot overcome this disease alone. For a long period of time I have had the curiosity of attending an Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.) meeting. My curiosity to attend an A.A. meeting came from having many family members deal with harsh realities because of alcohol related issues such as DUI’s and family separations. The A.A group meeting that I attended was about forty-five minutes away from my house. I decided to attend an aa meeting not so close to my house because I wanted to experience a meeting that involved people from different ethnic backgrounds as oppose to the people that I am accustom to seeing in my neighborhood.

I went to an Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meeting on November 26, 2016 at noon in Simi Valley, CA. It was in the back entrance of a strip mall in a long, thin room with tables down the middle and chairs around the table and around the walls in the room. It is only located four minutes from my house, but I have never noticed it before. As I walked in there was a little kitchen with coffee and a pecan pie and there were goodies on the table. I them walked into the main room.

I chose to attend the Alcoholic Anonymous meeting at Holy Trinity Orthodox Church on the north side of Chicago. I chose to visit a church because I wanted to see if there was a religious aspect thrown into the session. The name of the session was called Big Book Stop Study. This session occurs every Monday at 7:00pm, as an open meeting. The meeting lasted for an hour. The session was led by three members, Kyle, Tamara, and Melissa. There was fourteen participants within the group. I was very apprehensive about attending a meeting because I didn’t want to be seen as an alcoholic. For that very reason, I understand how hard it may be for some to admit to their alcoholism, due to the negative connotation that comes with the name. To some, that may seem like a short span of time. However, upon visiting this particular session I saw progression in each participant. I was very pleased with what I witnessed as a visitor.

The main purpose of this meeting is for the attendants to stay sober and help other members achieve and/or maintain sobriety. The only requirement of attending is the desire to stop drinking. It was an open speaker meeting which meant that alcoholics and nonalcoholics were welcomed to attend. This meeting was the type of meeting the members of A.A. share their stories, their problems with alcohol, what brought them there, and how

Now that I am participating in my first practicum, counseling complete strangers with real problems sitting in on an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting is more interesting than ever. For the sake of confidentiality no names will be provided and only the bare minimum amount of details otherwise. For this assignment, I attended a local church in Longview, Texas that holds weekly Celebrate Recovery meetings. No warning was provided to either the group leader or the group members about my attendance as is sometimes required for projects such as this. We are all broken to some extent or another so my being there was not too far from the truth (Rom. 2:10; 3:23). Upon arrival, I helped myself to the complimentary coffee and snacks, took a seat with an excellent vantage point and made small talk with a man to my immediate left.

But the room resembled a church in that instead of a symbol of Christ, like a cross, there was a large desk with the insignia AA hanging from the ceiling and a huge triangle affixed to the front of the desk. There were twelve step books on the black chairs, which reminded me of how bibles are in the pews of churches. There was an agenda of sorts, or announcements, just as they would have in a church. They also took up an offering just as they do in church. There were readings from the twelve step book, and there was a group leader sitting at the desk that guided the meeting just as a pastor would do. There was even mention of God and higher power, but there was one major difference, although they mentioned God, there was no power of God in the meeting. As the attendees began to share their thoughts the first expression was “Hi, I’m Joe and I’m an alcoholic”, this is a contradiction. In my mind it is self-defeating to say you are something you are so desperately trying not to be. It also is denying the power they possess at the same time because the Bible tells us in Proverbs 18:21 “Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof”, so if you truly believe you have conquered the addiction it is inconsistent to say I’m an alcoholic. On the other hand, maybe they are saying they haven’t conquered the addiction and they are always one foot into their addiction. Furthermore, I don’t see this as tapping into a higher power because there is no progression if your state of mind is always saying you will always be an alcoholic. Why not say I will overcome my addiction, and I’m a former alcoholic? I understand addiction is a disease. And, the first step is admitting you have a problem, but that is the first step not every step should include this. Most of the people there attended several meetings weekly.

I could not imagine myself socializing with these people. I was hoping they did not think I am one of them. As the meeting is about to begin this tall guy was about to read out of this book. He began to say the purpose of the meeting is… that is when I spaced out. I was so lost in my thoughts all I can remember him saying,“ purpose of recovery from the disease of addiction.” I still could not believe that I was sitting in a room filled with strangers. He stated the third tradition, “ the only requirement for membership is a desire to stop using.” I always put myself in my sister’s shoes; she has been attending NA meetings for 5 or 6 years now. I could not imagine what she felt like attending her first meeting. I believe I would feel cheated

When I had first read about this assignment, I was a little anxious to go to these meetings. mostly because I did not want to run into anyone that I had gone to high school, and since I am from a relatively quaint town, I knew that could be a possibility. However, the first meeting I had chosen to go visit was an alcoholics anonymous meeting that surprisingly was being held at my former high school. I had arrived early to settle into the back to make sure I would just observe and not disrupt the meeting. When it had started I was shocked that they started off by praying, I was not sure if all of them were from different religions. However, after I had read more into my readings it made sense to me why they had started off the meeting with a

I already knew what to expect when I attended the meeting because I had attended an AA meeting in my master’s program. However, this meeting was slightly different. I noticed when I walked in there was not as much touching (hugging) as in the AA meetings, although everybody was welcoming. This meeting was an open meeting, so all are welcome. I went to an early morning meeting starting at 6:30 am with the intentions fewer would attend. The meeting was scheduled to be for an hour only, most likely because it was during the week and people might be going before work.

I attended two spanish speaking AA meetings, January 21st and 22nd. One of the meetings was what they referred to as a planned meeting and the other one was a big book meeting. I also attended an NA meeting February 16th and it was an open discussion meeting. There was a world of difference between all three meetings, including the two AA meetings. I was extremely anxious before going into all three meetings, but I have to say now that I am done I consider this assignment a valuable experience.