Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is a support group that reaches out to those who have an addiction to alcohol in order to bring them to sobriety and change their lives for the better. One of the Alcoholics Anonymous meetings offered in the city of Mount Vernon is held at Faith Lutheran Church. Attending this meeting allowed me to gain a greater understanding of the struggle of alcohol addiction and the recovery process, and has highlighted the tremendous impact that AA has made on thousands of lives throughout the United States.
The majority of the meeting centered on a guest speaker who had personally been transformed through the twelve steps of the Alcoholics Anonymous program. The speaker shared his life story, relating how he had struggled …show more content…
This indicates that the recovery process is never quite complete for the people in this program. Members rely heavily on others in the group to keep them on the right path in life. The support group is analogous to a church congregation that provides spiritual guidance for the members of the church. In fact, submission to God was a large part of the AA meeting. The meeting opened with prayer requests for the members of the group and their families, and the meeting was ended with the Lord’s Prayer. The spiritual component to the AA meetings is crucial for the recovery process. In a study conducted in 2013, it was found that groups that put more emphasis on spiritual development had a higher success rate in maintaining sobriety than groups where the emphasis was instead placed on behavioral development (Greenfield & Tonigan, 2013). The study gave researchers a better understanding of the reasons for the effectiveness of twelve steps of the Alcoholics Anonymous program. Spiritual development helps a person to surrender their will to a higher power and to rely on others for help and support. While behavioral training is important for a person to manage feelings and problems, spiritual training is necessary to truly change the will and heart away from alcohol and toward God, and thus is necessary for
The majority of the meeting centered on a guest speaker who had personally been transformed through the twelve steps of the Alcoholics Anonymous program. The speaker shared his life story, relating how he had struggled …show more content…
This indicates that the recovery process is never quite complete for the people in this program. Members rely heavily on others in the group to keep them on the right path in life. The support group is analogous to a church congregation that provides spiritual guidance for the members of the church. In fact, submission to God was a large part of the AA meeting. The meeting opened with prayer requests for the members of the group and their families, and the meeting was ended with the Lord’s Prayer. The spiritual component to the AA meetings is crucial for the recovery process. In a study conducted in 2013, it was found that groups that put more emphasis on spiritual development had a higher success rate in maintaining sobriety than groups where the emphasis was instead placed on behavioral development (Greenfield & Tonigan, 2013). The study gave researchers a better understanding of the reasons for the effectiveness of twelve steps of the Alcoholics Anonymous program. Spiritual development helps a person to surrender their will to a higher power and to rely on others for help and support. While behavioral training is important for a person to manage feelings and problems, spiritual training is necessary to truly change the will and heart away from alcohol and toward God, and thus is necessary for