12 Step Meetings: Alcoholics Anonymous

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12-Step Meetings Summary
As a nursing student, each student has to attend and observe two twelve step meetings such as alcohol anonymous, narcotic anonymous, or cocaine anonymous as part of the community health project. I attended two alcoholics anonymous meetings. Alcoholics Anonymous, also known as the AA, is an alcoholism treatment program. There are group meetings in which individuals share their personal experiences about alcoholism and motivate each other to stay sober. According to AA Grapevine, “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” (AA Grapevine, n.d.). To become an AA meeting member, one should have a desire to stop drinking (AA Grapevine, n.d). It is a very welcoming and inviting place that helps one another to stay sober and fufill all their aspirations in life. The first AA meeting that I attended was located on 332 E. Yosemite Avenue. It was listed as one of Manteca’s Fellowship groups. This AA meeting was entirely a women’s meeting. Consequently, only women were permitted to attend it. There were about eight females that attended the meeting. The participants embraced and grasped each others’ diversity and differences to relate with one another. The ages of the contributors varied from the mid-thirties to mid-sixties. The group was also a very diverse group pertaining to their ethnicities. There were females that were Caucasian, Hispanic, and African-American. Out of the eight females, two of them were sober for more than fifteen years, and they were celebrating their ‘sobriety birthday’ this month. The rest of them had less than five years of sobriety. The second meeting I attended was located on 379 W. Louise Avenue. It was listed as a Back to Basics meeting. This meeting had a relatively similar structure as
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I first introduced myself and explained why I was there. Overall, both meetings ran the same routine. To facilitate the meetings, the secretaries of both meetings introduced themselves first, and then everyone else. Then, the secretaries in both meetings went over upcoming events, such as pot-lucks and sobriety birthdays. Some of the members in the group had supportive roles in addition to the secretary, such as refilling coffee during the meetings. Prior to the ‘Serenity Prayer’ performed, the secretary asked if there were any newcomers or visitors. There were no newcomers in both meetings. Furthermore, the Serenity Prayer was performed. Then, the secretary requested volunteers to read the twelve steps and twelve traditions. The volunteers read the twelve steps and twelve traditions. Both meetings had a topic. On a specific topic, each member shared his/her drinking experience starting by saying, “My name is … and I’m an alcoholic. They all call alcoholics themselves, regardless of how long they have been sober for. The rest of the members responded by saying, “Hi”. Some of the experiences were indeed heart-touching. They shared how they become alcoholics and how the AA meetings has helped them to become sober. During the meeting when everyone was sharing their experiences, the secretary passed around the basket to collect funds for supplies such as coffee, sugar, and etc. Every member contributed money in the basket according to their affordability. At the end of the meetings, everyone stood up and held hands with one another to pray to the

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