Essay On Group Observation

For the self-help meeting in regards for my reaction paper, I attended a Narcotics Anonymous (NA) meeting. NA is a nonprofit, community-based, 12-step recovery organization for recovering drug addicts (Bowens, 2011, p. 1). The meeting I attended took place outside on a Saturday afternoon at Magnolia Park in Garden Grove, California. It is an open-group tag meeting, where one speaker will tag another person to share and welcome for anyone to attend. It was very easy to locate the meeting, as it was right in front of the park’s only parking lot with members sitting in a circle on benches and lawn chairs. The meeting started at 12:00pm and ended around 1:30pm.

The support group I attended was on October 19th, 2012 at 12pm at Wesley Church located on Barstow Avenue. It was in the Winterburg Education Building in room 3. A gentleman by the name of Andy was leading the group. He first said a prayer and then asked if there were any new members. There were none so he asked if there were visitors. I introduced myself and said I was a Fresno State nursing student. He then said today they were going to talk about Step 12, which was about service. Service was about introducing AA to people that could benefit from the program. Before you were expected to complete step 12, they wanted you to complete steps 1-11 first.

As a mentioned before I came away from the AA meeting with a feeling, of great sadness and warmth. I felt welcomed and excepted, but at the same time I still cannot

The counseling student attended two AA meetings as an observer in order to understand the dynamics of the AA culture and to experience the possibilities of working in the field of addictions. The purpose of this essay is to discuss the various behavioral patterns of use described in the AA meetings (e. g., intensity, frequency, length of time and attempts to quit). This paper also identifies other necessary information required for proper assessment and diagnosis. This essay concludes with a synthesis of the information gathered from personal observation and this course’s texts assignments.

I did not wish to interrupt the natural flow of the meeting with my presence. However, that is exactly what occurred highlighting to me a duality in why AA can be both helpful and harmful depending ton the individual. One member spoke during the open testimony about his desire to only attend meetings with people that have 20 plus years of sobriety because he finds a newcomer to be distrustful to his experience in the group. During his five-minute monologue, it became clear to myself and other group members that he did not appreciate me observing his meeting. As other members spoke after him, he became increasingly agitated in his movements. When the group paused to collect the donations, he left the meeting and did not return. That experience highlighted the negative aspects of AA because the open honesty could be damaging or discouraging to newcomers. I tried to imagine myself a newcomer to AA, seeking treatment for something that I may not fully understand myself. After hearing his dismissal of newcomers and everyone under 20 years sobriety that feeling of “otherness” in a newcomer could push them to not return. Therefore eliminating the AA support for

The social problem of drug addiction applies as both a public and personal issue for a variety of reasons. A person begins taking drugs for a variety of reasons, many of them personal. Their use is based on personal choice

The first meeting that I attended was a Narcotic Anonymous meeting. The meeting time was 7pm-8pm on September 13, 2016. The group was made up of 12 individuals, 4 females and 8 males. The overall feeling of the group illustrated positive energy. Each person gave the perception that they truly wanted as well as needed to be there. I did observe that most of the participants depicted a very high anxiety level based on their body language and the tone in their voices. There were no “new comers”, which is the terminology used for a person who is new to the world of Narcotic Anonymous. The dynamics of the group, included persons who were in recovery as well as persons whose addiction is still active.

Last night, I attended a Narcotics Anonymous meeting. This was not quite a new experience for me, be my late father was an alcoholic and narcotics addict that died of cirrhosis later on in my life this is why I identified myself with them. Narcotics Anonymous is a fraternity or association where there a recuperating addicts and their main purpose is stay clean. Consequently, the member of this fraternity were well-groomed, yesterday was ice cream sticks day where they had a keyword written on a little piece of paper, such as “perseverance”. Anyone can be a narcotics or alcohol user.

When I walked into the meeting, I was a little apprehensive. It was only a small group of about ten people, which was held at a local hospital. Knowing that I had to explain I was there to observe as a student studying social work, I was worried that the participants would hold back from their real behaviors in the group and that they would be cold to me. However, that assumption could not have been farther from the truth. All my apprehension flew out the window, as the members of the small group all welcomed me with open arms. Apparently, these were regulars. Most in the group attended every meeting, and continued to use the support of the group to deal with the continuous chaos and trauma of living with an addict. I was welcomed to sit and observe the behavior of the individual members of the group express their grief, fear, and

Addiction can be a very troubling experience for the addict and those involved in their life. However, each individual’s journey with drug addiction is a personal one. Angela Garcia studied a clinic in New Mexico to better understand drug addiction and the detoxification process. Her task in this study is evident when she states ” I understood my task as an anthropologist to conjure up the social life that produced these signs, to give it flesh and depth, that is why I went to New Mexico to study heroin- to try to give purpose and meaning to an aspect of American Life that had become dangerously ordinary, even cliché.”(5, Garcia) She is clearly there to learn and then interpret that which she finds. In observing she is doing what Roberta Edwards

I've been working in this field for the past 10 years and I have referred clients to an AA/NA meetings many many times. I'm not in recovery and so it never occurred to me to attend one myself. What I know about those meetings are either from coworkers, from clients that I've worked with and also from school and just reading about it. When the assignment was given I was excited about the opportunity to be able to learn more personally how it feels to attend a meeting.

Approaching the corner space of the strip mall, I could tell I was in the right place for a meeting with several people gathered outside engaged in meaningful communication. Some were smoking, some were drinking coffee but all of them looked bright eyed and full of energy at 10:00 AM Sunday morning. Walking towards the doors that read “Spirit of Studio 12”, I was met with smiles and what appeared to be a welcoming atmosphere. As I crossed the threshold a young man greeted me with a warm smile saying “welcome, the coffee and donuts are over there”, pointing to a small room, “help yourself”. He also told me where the meeting was taking place and to sit wherever I would like, accept for the head of a table stationed at one side of the room facing the chairs around it. My first impression of this Narcotics Anonymous meeting was that of a friendly and supportive environment, what I imagine is essential to someone seeking help for their addiction for the first time.

Additionally, I have noticed their improvement by the end of the group. Clients turned into friends, they would text each other and meet outside of the group. Clients were encouraging and supportive towards group members struggles which provided a safe environment for group members to share and be honest. A challenge that this program had was attendance. Clients lacked transportation to attend the group. I would take a county vehicle across Fairfax County to pick up clients that would take several hours to complete. Clients did not attend because the travel time was an inconvenience and conflicted with other priorities for an annoyance because of the long travel time. Additionally, two clients developed an intimate relationship which stopped due to conflict. One of the members of this intimate relationship refused to attend the group for several weeks to avoid the other group

Observation: During our first group setting I started noticing subgrouping. It is almost like the group was split in half. Everyone participated but I noticed more of who hangs out with whom and you could see the subgroups in the larger group.

Narcotic abuse has become a scary epidemic in today’s society. More and more people are sucked into the horrible addiction. An addiction is an actual disease that occurs in the brain. Many times these drugs affect the brain and in result, cause the addiction to occur. More and more there are people coming into the hospital from a heroin overdose, are released from the hospital, go back out, and inject the drug. The drug is so powerful that these individuals do not see what is happening to them as they slowly kill themselves.