The session was an open discussion meeting on a Saturday morning at 8 am. It was astonishing to see the high turnout for the early morning group. The common trend mentioned by the members was that they wanted to come early Saturday to set the tone for the rest of the weekend. It was the day of the Michigan State University versus Notre Dame Football game and many mentioned that their friends and families were having get-togethers where alcohol would be present. It seemed like an anticipated difficult day for many but they wanted that clarity of AA thoughts to be present with them throughout the day and weekend.
For this assignment, I observed an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting held at The Meeting Place on Wednesday, September 28, 2016. There were 15 members in attendance, 12 men and 3 women not counting myself. The group leaders were both women and sat at the front of the room. For confidentiality of the group member names will not be included. The meeting began with the group leaders reminding the attendees of the rules of AA and the process of the meeting. Several of the attendees read the declaration of AA and the documents associated with the meeting structure. After the introduction, several of the members gave their testimony regarding their own experience with drinking. Following the short declarations, a passage of the big book was
Alcoholics Anonymous is a support group established to help, support, encourage men and women suffering from alcohol addiction. This group is anonymous and volunteer based where people from different race, gender, and socioeconomic status share their stories of substance addictions. Based on the dynamics, this addiction has no prejudice. Many people are unaware that alcohol is a depressant in which slows down one's motor skills and the ability to think rational. This inability can lead to the person harming themselves and others. Many alcoholics used this drug as a way of coping with depression, stress, or loses. This support group will enable the attendees to become open with their addiction, explore other option, and eventually cease this
AL-Anon is a group that was formed to help the families effected by alcoholism (Van Wormer, K. & Davis, D.R. 2013). In Ohio, there are groups that meet on a daily basis from 6am until midnight. You can find an Al-Anon meeting in many neighborhoods throughout Cincinnati. For the purpose of this reflection, the group was observed twice on a Monday night and a Wednesday night at the same location on October 3rd and October 5th. There were roughly 20-30 participants in the group on both nights and the facilitator was different each night observed. The theme of the meetings on those nights was covering steps 10 and 12 of the 12 step program.
The group prayed after reviewing the guidelines. Then, a participant of the group proceeded to read the “how it works” from the AA book. Afterwards, another member read the 12 traditions. Two participants shared their experience with Alcoholism while others provided reflections and support. The facilitator informed me that each meeting two participants share. After the two participants shared, the AA meeting ended with another prayer. This paper will talk about my observations and reactions attending the AA meeting, and how attending the meeting will inform my future work as a clinician. The purpose of this paper is to present my personal experience of an AA meeting, and how I plan to grow as a therapist from that
I attended the Alcohol Anonymous (AA) meeting on Friday right after internship, which is located on 205 SW 23rd St, Ft. Lauderdale, FL. I was a little bit shock after arriving to the location because the building was surrounded around residential homes, for a moment I thought I was lost. The meeting started promptly at 5:30pm for an hour and meets four days a week. The topic of the meeting was HALT which stand for hungry, along, and tired. Ordinarily, the guest speaker of the meeting is also a recovering alcoholic. He greeted everyone and passed out literature that was going to be discussed in the group.
On June 26, 2015 we visit alcoholic anonym Hispanic group called “Poco a poco”. The group was composed by 11 males and two females. Their ages were 30 being the youngest one and the rest between 40 to 60 years old that put them in middle adulthood stage. Beside their room there was another group non-Hispanic. We got to the place fifteen minutes early which gave us the opportunity to observe the two different cultural group waiting outside for their section to start. What we notice first was that the non-Hispanic group where composed by 5 males and 4 females all from the middle adulthood stage, they all interact well with each other and they all were smoking cigarettes. The Hispanic group they all salute each other but none was smoking cigarettes. The section of the AA meeting start on time. The first thing they all did was to greet us when we enter the section. They begin their meeting reciting the twelve stages and after that they made a prayer. After the prayer they said their rules of participation and everyone turn off and/or silence their cellphones. Each individual took 30 minutes to talk. They explain the first time they drink, and how they all broke
In 1935, a fellowship by the name of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) originated as an effort to develop a method for understanding the complexities of and recovering from alcohol abuse and addiction (Clinton & Scalise, 2013; Hester &Miller, 2003). AA is a non-professional spiritual organization of men and women who gather to share their experiences with alcohol abuse/addiction, to convey hope and strength to overcome alcohol dependence, and help others in the recovery process (Clinton & Scalise, 2013).
For this paper I attended an Alcohol Anonymous meeting (AA), so that I could experience a new type of group that I have never been exposed to before. I attended the AA meeting here in Macomb, at the First Presbyterian Church on October, 1 2016 at 8:00pm. I learned about this group because a classmate informed me about it. I decided to choose this specific group because I have never been to an AA meeting before. I felt this would be a good way to get exposed to something I have never experience and to get a better understanding of an AA meeting.
This meeting was broken up into two different sections. First part was story telling. A guy told personal stories of his struggles with alcohol use and abuse from his past in addition to his struggles to remain sober. This part took about 30 minutes. The second part was open dialogue which took about an hour. Nobody was instructing us to do this or that in this section. It was a dialogue which communicating, saying, sitting there, and listening to somebody telling their personal stories. It allowed everyone to talk about their struggles, as well as encourage one another. Before each person started telling his or her stories, that person had to announce his/her name and that his/her were an alcoholic or addict. After the person finished
I noticed that the participants did not look like what I perceived someone who was suffering from alcohol dependence would look like. They looked like productive law-abiding citizens. I am embarrassed to say that it never occurred to me that these individuals could live positive lives while battling alcoholism. I assumed that they would be dysfunctional and incapable to participate in the meeting. Instead many of them looked healthy and were eager to engage in the group discussion.
The objective of this study is to write a reaction on a 12-step meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous with the focus of the meeting being attitude modification. The meeting attended was the Stairway Group meeting in Decatur, Alabama. The members who attended this group meeting were of all ages, of both the female and male gender and were white, black, and Hispanic individuals. The majority of the attendees were males.
The team meeting was changed to several different days by the guardian. I was trying to attend via phone but due to the meeting starting late had to obtain an update after the meeting. The following is the update from Ms. Mullough internal case manager from Rainbow.
This field site is ideal because it’s a primary source, with options for interviews, observations, and interaction. There is also the option to simply observe and take notes on what the speakers are saying, the members’ reactions to the speakers, and the side conversations about their lives. This data is better than what can be found by searching on the internet or through books because it is first-hand accounts of real alcoholics’ lives. By experiencing these people’s conversations, this project will be unavoidably accurate with its data, and have a sense of reality involved as well. An example of a conversation from the first field site visit involved a middle-aged woman named Michelle and two other men talking about their families. Michelle, who’s a single mom of two kids, 18 and 20, was comforting one of her AA friends regarding his own family problems. This was the first taste of how AA works. It’s not only a place for alcoholics to get and
Teamwork is the joint action by a group to complete a given task. This was displayed by group 20 as each member contributed their individual knowledge and skills towards the team as well as the course objective.
I spent my college career advocating for students and the campus. I feel that I have something to offer not only to the board but to the campus as a whole. Most students during my time at Peace have easily identified me, and I feel that as a member of the Alumni Board current and future student will continue to easily identify me.