Case Study: AA Meetings

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 decided to attend a meeting based first (and almost solely) on convenience of the location. So I decided to attend a meeting right here in Batavia. The “Batavia 12 & 12” at the Holy Trinity Church down on 6th & Wood St. They hold meeting on Mondays around 11:00am. The main focus is to follow the 12 steps in order and work on them in a more traditional fashion. They do have the big book, but follow it more in a step by step focus. However karma decided to rear its head and make it a Closed Meeting, meaning that it is not as open to the public to sit on and they only allow members who are coming with a problem related to alcohol. So at first I was turned away but, I was lucky enough to know a person

The purpose of this research paper was to attend two support group meetings and share my experiences. The meetings that were to be attended were an Alcoholics Anonymous

The meeting I attended took place in Bothell on a weeknight at 7:00 pm in the evening. The meeting was held in a local church and there were 17 people in attendance, excluding myself. Among the 17 people, there were 6 women and 11 men. The average attendee was approximately between the ages of 40-50, 4 people were under the age of 30, and two were somewhere around 60. Of the 17 people, 16 were white and one woman was of an Asian-American descent.

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

I went to a traditional 12 step AA meeting. It was a long timers group, which had individuals who have been attending AA for a while now and those who have been sober for at least 10 years or more. It was at Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church, located in Johnstown, Pa. The meeting was from 7:30pm to 8:30pm. They started off the meeting by reading the preamble. The preamble, which was found and quoted from the District 41- Alcoholics Anonymous, Johnstown, Pa website (2015), “Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. There are no dues or fees for AA membership; we are self-supporting through our own contributions. AA is not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization or institution; does not wish to engage in any controversy; neither endorses nor opposes any causes. Our primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety.” After the preamble they had one of the attendees of the group read the 12 steps.

I attended an Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meeting at the Great Bridge United Methodist Church, in Chesapeake, VA. This was an open meeting held at 0730, entitled; Ready, Willing & Able. This meeting had a variety of individuals in attendance. After the meeting was started, today’s agenda was to read a quote from a book titled, Living Sober, distributed by Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. Each person in the room was asked to comment about the quote or “pass”. There were 18 people in attendance and the meeting lasted 60 minutes. Each person was allowed to respond to the quote for 2-3 minutes. Everyone was given chance to speak, that wanted to. Some of the participants that were engaged spoke a lot more than others.

Attending a local Alcoholics Anonymous meeting was a humbling and informative experience. To be completely honest, I had no idea what to expect going into the meeting. Right before I walked in, I felt somewhat uncomfortable and embarrassed. I felt as if I was intruding on someone’s personal life with my presence, even though I knew I was welcomed since the meeting was listed as “open”. Alcohol abuse is a very sensitive topic to me, as someone quite close to me is an alcoholic: my Uncle. I know that he is a recovering alcoholic, but I never quite know what is going on with him because I don’t ask questions and he never shares what he is feeling with me. When I was younger, I remember that he was always the life of my family parties, but I know now it was because he was drunk. When I see him now, he isn’t as energetic as he used to be and often avoids situations where alcohol is involved. Although my Uncle did not personally tell me, my father has shared with me that he attends AA meetings at a church in my hometown. I never understood what AA meetings really entail and didn’t grasp how they helped alcoholics recover. Attending this local AA meeting helped shed light on what my Uncle feels, and I am more understanding to his addiction. I am thankful for this assignment because I know that my Uncle is not alone; the AA community is so supportive and the members all have the best intentions of getting

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.

For an observation of an AA meeting my classmate and I made arrangements to go to an open meeting at Our Lady Star Of The Sea Church, which was held in a basement during a Tuesday afternoon session at 4:00 p.m. I first looked up the sessions online on a website where it held all the meetings on Staten Island and this one fit my schedule well. Its not unusual for me to be attending or visiting churches but for this assignment it did feel a little out of my comfort zone, because I didn’t know what to expect or what others would think of me. I chose a seat in the back corner that wouldn’t be too obvious yet it seemed like a typical seat for a newbie to sit at. The room was fairly large and I was surprised at how big the crowd got at least 30 plus people attended.

The point at which the client’s symptoms were most extreme was towards the end of her alcoholism, which was in her early thirties. She used humor, felt incomplete and fragile, oversensitive to other’s reactions of her, felt the need to hide from people whether it was through work or through drinking, and was aware of her drinking problem. She also presented with anxiety, excessive exercising and healthy eating, and denial of drinking in excess.

The meeting began with a prayer and a reading of the twelve steps, which I did, and preceded into a 25-minute meditation session. Following the meditation session, the floor was opened up for persons to reflect on their meditation. It was quiet for sometime, but eventually persons began to talk. Each person that spoke introduced himself or herself as, “Hi I am XXXX and I am an alcoholic” in which the rest of us responded with a hello. The discussion each person brought to the circle often revolved around what they had been experiencing in the last week, and ended with a positive-spin that reflected back on their journey with sobriety. One gentleman talked about his spring break on Orca Island with his kids, another discussed a speaker he was arranging to have visit Spokane, and another woman talked about an “essay reading party” she went to in which wine was being drank by the majority of participants. The meeting ended with the serenity prayer, something the girls at Daybreak say before lunch, and simple discussion between some of the participants. During this time I talked with the woman who had told me where to find the AA meeting. She talked with me about the need to find the proper AA meeting for myself, encouraging me to explore multiple

By agreeing to take on this client, the counselor agrees to have a responsibility to the client. By having this responsibility, Rule 135-7-01 of the GA State Board Rules & Regulations (2016) states that the counselor must try every realistic effort to encourage the wellbeing, autonomy, best interests of families and individuals, which also includes respecting the rights of those seeking assistance, obtaining informed consent, and making realistic efforts to be certain that counselor’s services are appropriately used. One way this rule could potentially be violated is if the counselor does not offer an alternative treatment for the client if she continues to be uncomfortable with attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. It is

The client's presenting problem is his drug use and how it has affected his life negatively. " I am not able to be with my kids, family, mother (because the client is constantly in and out of jail). When I am using, it affects everyone close to me. It hinders me from my work. I want to help kids using heroin and I cannot do that if I am using."

Professional interventionists can work together with an alcohol abuser's family, friends and co-workers to help him understand the importance of addiction therapy. An effective intervention will move the patient from the present situation and encourage him to instantly start taking the journey towards recovery. This should include undergoing a detoxification program, getting medical care and having behavioral counseling.