Alcoholics Anonymous Chapter Summaries

Many people have been misguided about whether or not alcoholism is “disease” that attacks a person’s good health. A key suggestion of those that believe alcoholism is a disease is that a disease is uncontrolled. This is not so. When people develop an addiction to alcohol they tend to push everything of importance out of their lives: family, friends, and sometimes even jobs. People with addiction to alcohol throw

5. Corrective recapitulation of primary family group - experiencing transference relationships growing out of primary family experiences providing the opportunity to relearn and clarify distortions. Members learned that they could resolve issues from the past

I have never experienced what it would be like to be a part of an AA meeting. The only time I have had seen or heard someone mention meetings for alcoholics has been TV shows and movies, which would portray these meeting as a circle of strangers just deliberating stories of their life and how this disease has changed them forever. Therefore, I had no idea what to expect. I felt intimidated and had a sense of nervousness, so I decided I would not go alone and brought a friend. My expectation upon entering this meeting was to see beat up people with bad hygiene and a homeless appearance. As a matter of fact, the expectations I had upon walking towards this place was that I was going to get hit on and even get kidnapped. As crazy as it

Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is the largest and most commonly known self-help group in the world. Since the creation of AA in 1935, there have been many programs modeled after it, which are also based on the 12-Step Program. Some of these include Narcotics Anonymous (NA) and Chemically Dependent Anonymous, as well as programs for specific drugs, such as Cocaine Anonymous (CA) and Crystal Meth Anonymous (NIDA, 2012). Attendance and participation for self-help groups are open for anyone to attend and free of cost for all members, with meetings typically held in locations such as churches and public buildings. “Metropolitan areas usually have specialized groups, based on such member characteristics as gender, length of time in recovery,

The first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting I attended opened with – probably as most — a serenity prayer, a reading of the AA preamble, a daily reflection, and several other readings. After the opening readings, they told individual stories of their own struggles and battles with alcohol use and abuse from their past along with their tussles to stay sober. Incorporated in the opening statements were references to the holy bible, prayer, spirituality, divine intervention, God responding to prayers, God’s will, God’s plan, and the soul. The meeting closed with an ‘Our Father’ prayer which was led with attendees, by making a circle and holding hands.

Alcoholics Anonymous was founded in 1935 in Akron Ohio by Dr.Bob and Bill. They created this organization because they were alcoholics trying to get over their addiction at the time, they wanted to expand this group to help out even more people. How this organization started to take off and expand farther than Akron Ohio is, the two men Dr.Bob and Bill went to the hospital in Akron Ohio to help the alcoholics in the hospital. This man that they helped in the hospital helped the two men start the first AA group, later on the idea spread to New York which started the second group, a third group started in Cleveland, within these three “founding” groups it took over four years to produce 100 sober people out of the three groups together.

NCADD is the top nationwide organization in the world that addresses alcoholism and drug abuse. Marty Mann is the founder and one of the first women to achieve sobriety in Alcoholics Anonymous. Marty Mann created the National Committee for Education on Alcoholism in 1944. The National Committee for Education on Alcoholism later became known as the National Council on Alcoholism in 1950. In 1990, the National Council on Alcoholism became known as the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence. NCADD raises public awareness about addiction throughout the United States. NCADD operates on a national and local community level. The National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence of Maryland (NCADD-MD) focuses on raising public awareness

However, there were some words of wisdom that was shared with me by a former addict. They informed me that alcoholism is not an illness itself, but a symptom of a bigger and deeper problem. I was amazed when I thought of it that way, that alcohol is simply the drug that addicts utilize to help them cope with a difficult issue. This opens up an entirely different way to treat an alcoholic. One must see that the drug is not the true problem, but something greater is,

When describing the surrender the recovered alcoholic in AA exhibit by admitting that they are, indeed, alcoholic and cannot control their drinking, I began by introducing a quote from the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. I introduced the source and the quote here, “The book Alcoholics Anonymous, also known as “The Big Book”, describes the alcoholic this way, “If, when you honestly want to, you find you cannot quit entirely, or if when drinking, you have little control over the amount you take, you are probably alcoholic.” I proceed in describing how the quote is relative to the alcoholic that achieves recovery in AA by means of self-diagnosis. I then integrated a quote from another source that expressed similarity and agreement. By synthesizing two sources, I was able to consolidate the two thoughts into one element, which was, “In summary, AA works for the alcoholic, not, for the drinking non-alcoholic who can control their drinking”. By properly synthesizing two sources, my claim proves to be credible. By successfully synthesizing sources to support my claim, I demonstrated knowledge of learning outcome

Alcoholism has little to do with what kind of alcohol one drinks, how long one has been drinking, or even exactly how much alcohol one consumes. But it has a great deal to do with a person's uncontrollable need for alcohol. Did you know that 88,000 deaths a year are attributed to excessive alcohol abuse? Today, you will be hearing about a young gentle man just at the age of 22 that struggles with alcohol addiction and how it has affected his future. His name is Mike, a college baseball player that struggles with alcohol because he grew up witnessing alcohol addiction in the family. Mike’s father struggled with alcohol addiction as well as his grandpa back in the day when receiving 7 total D.U. I’s. At age 13, Mike began drinking because his

Alcoholics Anonymous is an international mutual aid fellowship founded in 1935 by Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith in Akron, Ohio. AA states that its primary purpose is to help alcoholics "to stay sober and help other alcoholics achieve sobriety". With other early members Bill Wilson and Bob Smith developed AA 's Twelve Step program of spiritual and character development. AA 's initial Twelve Traditions were introduced in 1946 to help the fellowship be stable and unified while disengaged from "outside issues" and influences. The Traditions recommend that members and groups remain anonymous in public media, altruistically helping other alcoholics and avoiding affiliations with any other organization. Subsequent fellowships such as Narcotics Anonymous have adopted and adapted the Twelve Steps and the Twelve Traditions to their respective primary purposes.

Despite the common belief for the past 2 centuries, alcoholism is not a disease; rather it is a conscious desire to lose self-control. While drunk, the user is guided by impulses, which creates confusion and causes the user to act against their own best interests, but when it comes down to it, it was the user’s conscious choice to pick up the bottle in the first place. An alcoholic drinks because she wants to exist in a temporary void, and this desire for the void causes the alcoholic to destroy the

The best way to fix alcoholism is to treat it as a disease that needs to be cured. Alcoholism is definitely a problem and causes harm to both the alcoholic and the people around them, but it does so in a much different way than a disease such as cancer. Instead, alcoholism is a disease of both physical and mental dependence. Most diseases are treated by surgery or medication, but the only way to fix the problem of alcohol abuse is by changing the mindset of the alcoholic. This is why Hazelden Betty Ford uses mental adjustment techniques to treat alcoholics at its centers. Their philosophy relies on the fact that the alcoholic is mentally dependent on alcohol and the only way to fix their disease is to change how the alcoholic thinks about alcohol. Drinking alcohol is also a choice, unlike a disease such as cancer which no one would choose to have. Therefore, Hazelden has to focus on showing the alcoholic how to make the choice of abstaining from alcohol instead of removing the desire like a tumor in a cancer patient. Hazelden’s understanding that alcoholism is a mental disease and their philosophy of mentally treating alcoholics at their treatment centers is why they are so successful, but the fact that alcoholism can reappear at any time makes alcoholism incredibly difficult to completely cure.

Schwartz believes that Alcoholism is like any other addiction, and that “…there may be aspects of “choice” in their [alcoholics] behavior but we also know that alcohol is a depressant and addictive… [and that] addicted individuals often have a part of them that wants to be “healthy” and stop the addiction but struggle to do so due to many different factors” (Shine). Schwartz is stating that there may be different factors that contribute to this misuse of Alcoholism. Therefore, it is not entirely the result of the person drinking, but various other factors as well. Schwartz discusses that there are mental illnesses that coincide with Alcoholism and that some aspects of life are simply too overwhelming, leading to drinking in order to avoid or cope with these aspects. Schwartz also expresses how difficult it is to treat those suffering from Alcoholism because she must first get a clear understanding of who they are and what factors contribute to their tendency to misuse in order to provide accurate

Alcoholism is a disease that affects millions of people all around the world. Everyday people die from alcoholism, families are split, children and wives are abused, jobs are lost and good people seem more and more hopeless. According to Mayoclinic.org, an online medical dictionary, alcoholism can be described as a pattern of heavy drinking which involves trouble of controlling the intake of alcohol, still drinking after problems flourish that are caused by our drinking, having to drink more and more every time to get to the same buzz and having alcohol withdrawals when you stop or drink less. These are symptoms of a life threatening disease. Many might say that alcoholism is mind state and could simply be dominated with a strong will power, this is not the case. A true alcoholic cannot stop drinking on his own and live a happy and normal life. Alcohol takes control of the mind , the body and the spirit, quitting seems nearly impossible. According to the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, (NCADD), this year in the United states it was calculated that around 17.6 Million people drink alcohol in an abusive way. It also mentions that 88,000 deaths are due an excessive use of alcohol and 40% of patients in hospitals are being treated for conditions caused by a heavy drinking lifestyle. It is clear and evident that there is a huge problem, a problem that is ignored by many who do not see this disease as dangerous as it really is.