Alcoholics Anonymous Meeting Essay

Addiction support meetings have multiple benefits beyond helping a person move toward a healthier, more stable and productive life without the misuse of substances. Historically speaking, in the case of Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, the idea that one alcoholic speaking with another is enough of a good start for progress toward recovery. As a matter of fact, that is how it is described in AA literature (Big Book, 2001). Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship founded in 1935 by Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith in Akron, Ohio. Its primary purpose is to help alcoholics stay sober and help other alcoholics achieve sobriety. Early in the inception of AA, both Dr. Bob and Bill made it clear that no one can know the true nature of alcoholism as well as another suffering alcoholic (Big Book, 2001). The inherent capacity for depth of empathy, evident in sharing one 's experience, strength and hope, with another person who is suffering from the same problems, is a strong foundation for the much needed support necessary for recovery to take place. For this project, I attended two different meetings. One was an open meeting of alcoholics anonymous and the other was a closed meeting of crystal meth …show more content…
They meet on Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, at 7:00 PM, at the same room; The Miami-Dade Lambda Clubhouse. This a support group was set up to help people who are seeking recovery from misuse of crystal methamphetamine. This was a closed meeting which encourages that all attendees identify as addicts. The structural format of this meeting was similar to that of the AA meeting. They opened up with the reciting of the serenity prayer and followed up with the readings of a preamble and a portion of The Big Book. The readings here were more specific to recovery from crystal meth. Although the 12-step program followed by this group is based on AA 's, some of the words are substituted in order make it more