Jessica Teta
11/21/08
SWK 572
Alcoholics Anonymous is group of men and women that share their experience, offer support and hope to each other in efforts to recover from alcoholism and maintain recovery. AA is a self recovery program. It is supported by members’ own contributions and is not affiliated with any sect, denomination, organization or institution. It is not a place where folks can get medical treatment, referrals or assessments. It is simply a place of support and refuge with a common purpose, sobriety. It stared in the 1930’s by two drunks and now it has grown to hundreds of thousands of members all over the world.
I attended a meeting at the First Congregational Church in Branford. Going into it I was bit nervous because I did not think there would be that many people there and I would stick out like a sore thumb. But much to my surprise there was about 35 people in the room. There was 6 women (including myself) and the rest were men. Their ages ranged from I would say about 40 to 60 years old, but there was a young gentleman there who looked about my age. All AA meeting are not created alike. Some are open (anyone can attend) and some are closed (only members). Some meetings have speakers, some have the Big Book and some are just open forum discussion. I attended an open Big Book meeting. In a meeting like this there are copies of the Big Book (Alcoholics Anonymous Book) all over the room.
When the meeting first started it was mainly announcements. But then it came time for the story. We read a chapter aloud with everyone taking turns at each paragraph. The story was about a young Native American who’s parents died of alcoholism and upon swearing he’d never become one he went to school to become a pilot. He became an accredited and decorated pilot, flying for the military and private airlines. However, he and his buddies were caught flying under the influence and that is when his life would take a...