Author: Gary Jackson

What is A A.? Alcoholics Anonymous

It isn’t mandatory to identify yourself but it might be helpful if you are attending your first meeting. Many meetings begin with a reading from the Big Book — frequently a portion of Chapter 5 (“How It Works”) or Chapter 3 (“More About Alcoholism”). A statement about anonymity in A.A.

• Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), voluntary fellowship of alcoholic persons who seek to get sober and remain sober through self-help and the help of other recovered alcoholics.
• Each group is autonomous and has the right to choose whether or not to provide proof of attendance at their meeting.
• Speaker meetings often are open meetings.
• Increased more after a 1941 article in the Saturday Evening Post about the group.
• By Buddy T

  Buddy T is a writer and founding member of the Online Al-Anon Outreach Committee with decades of experience writing about alcoholism.

Big Book studies are where the group reads a section of the book Alcoholics Anonymous together and people share about their understanding of the passage. In these shares, members usually relate the reading to their own life experience. These meetings are a great way to gain a deeper understanding of what the book means and how others relate to it. Everywhere you go there are AA meetings where only women or men are allowed. You will also find many meetings that are gay, and some gay men’s meetings. This is to create safety when sharing about gender-specific issues.

A.A. Can Support Professionals

By helping others to recover we stay sober ourselves. AA meetings are gatherings where recovery from alcoholism is discussed. One perspective sees them as “quasi-ritualized therapeutic sessions run by and for, alcoholics”.[59] There are a variety of meeting types some of which are listed below. At some point during the meeting a basket is passed around for voluntary donations. Meetings welcome attendees from court programs and treatment facilities.

• Group meetings are conducted by A.A.
• For this we find we need the help and support of other alcoholics in A.A.
• Instead, its only concern is the person attending.
• It’s easy to laugh when somebody at the podium cracks a joke about, for instance, going to jail and being the smelliest bum in the holding cell.

Works depends, in part, on finding a meeting that’s a good fit. For example, an intercity group of A.A. Members who are mostly homeless may not be as beneficial for other demographics. This pamphlet describes who A.A.s are and what we have learned about alcoholism. We are not anti-alcohol and we have no wish to reform the world. We are not allied with any group, cause or religious denomination.

Information on Alcoholics Anonymous

We welcome new members, but we do not recruit them. We are people who have discovered and admitted that we cannot control alcohol. We have learned that we must live without it to live normal, happy lives.

• We are people who have discovered and admitted that we cannot control alcohol.
• Offline meetings, also called “face to face”, “brick and mortar”, or “in-person” meetings, are held in a shared physical real-world location.
• Because he is a member of a support group that stresses the importance of anonymity at the public level, he does not use his photograph or his real name on this website.

These early efforts to help others kept him sober, but were ineffective in getting anyone else to join the group and get sober. Dr. Silkworth suggested that Wilson place less stress on religion (as required by The Oxford Group) and more on the science of treating alcoholism. We do not impose our experience with problem drinking on others, but we do share it when we are asked to do so. We know our own sobriety depends on connecting with other alcoholics. What it means is that we have ups and downs in sobriety, though hopefully not the level of drama and chaos we experience while drinking. It’s helpful to know that when you’ve had a hard day, or just a weird one, there’s maybe a specific kind of AA meeting that could help you feel better.

Where Meetings Happen

When practiced as a way of life, they can expel the obsession to drink and enable the sufferer to recover from alcoholism. Proof of attendance at meetings is not part of A.A.’s procedure. Each group is autonomous and has the right to choose whether or not to provide proof of attendance at their meeting. Some groups, with the consent of the prospective member, have an A.A. Member acknowledge attendance. This may be provided  on a slip that has been furnished by the referral source, or via a digital method if the group is online.

• Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of people who come together to solve their drinking problem.
• By helping others to recover we stay sober ourselves.
• At both types of meetings, it may be requested that participants confine their discussion to matters pertaining to recovery from alcoholism.
• We know our own sobriety depends on connecting with other alcoholics.
• You can help people who are affected by alcoholism by making a donation to the Cleveland District Office.