Alcoholics Anonymous is a community of people who come together to solve their drinking problem. It doesn't cost anything to attend A, A. There are no age or education requirements to participate. Membership is open to anyone who wants to do something about their drinking problem.
A typical AA meeting is a topic discussion meeting. The person leading the meeting chooses a topic and the members take turns sharing their experience on the topic. Some AA meetings are designed for a specific purpose, such as 12-step study groups or beginner meetings designed to teach newcomers the basics of the program. There are two ways to think about AA: how it works for an individual and how it works as a group.
For the individual, AA works through the 12 steps. Similarly, individual groups and meetings follow the 12 Traditions. Together, these two sets of guiding principles have ensured that AA remains completely disaffiliated and is effective as a means of treating and overcoming alcohol addiction.
Alcoholics Anonymous
helps guide addicts to understand that their immediate problem is alcohol.Once their alcohol consumption is under control and eliminated from their daily lives, members who are struggling in their recovery can more successfully address their life problems. Solutions to these problems may not have been easy before, but living by ideals A, A. Provides, which has been proven to work for many, allows people to cope with what they once slept with substance abuse. Managing these problems and healing internal wounds is much more effective when you are sober than when you are under the influence of alcohol.
Psychologists and psychiatrists, trained to provide cognitive behavioral therapy and motivation-enhancing therapy to treat patients with alcohol use disorder, may struggle to admit that lay people who lead AA groups do a better job of keeping people in the wagon. New members are also encouraged to attend 90 meetings in 90 days (three months of daily AA meetings) to help them overcome the initial, often very difficult, period of addiction recovery. To encompass everything, the ideology of AA emphasizes tolerance rather than a narrow religious worldview that could make the organization unpleasant to potential members and therefore limit its effectiveness. AA is not allied with any sect, denomination, policy, organization or institution; does not wish to participate in any controversy; nor does it endorse or oppose any cause.
This has also happened with new male members receiving guidance from older AA women, looking for sexual companionship. At Big Book meetings, the group attending will take turns reading a passage from the AA Big Book and then discuss how they relate to it afterwards. A study found an association between an increase in attendance at AA meetings with greater spirituality and a decrease in the frequency and intensity of alcohol consumption. Researchers Only Analyzed AA Studies; Excluded Narcotics Anonymous and Organizations Focused on Addiction to Other Substances.
Alcoholics Anonymous, or AA as it is widely known, has existed since it was founded in 1935 by Bill W. People with problems other than alcoholism are eligible for AA membership only if they also have a drinking problem. With permission from AA, subsequent scholarships such as Narcotics Anonymous and Gamblers Anonymous have adapted the Twelve Steps and the Twelve Traditions to their addiction recovery programs. In 1939, a New York psychiatric institution, Rockland State Hospital, was one of the first institutions to allow AA hospital groups.
Under the care of William Duncan Silkworth (one of the first benefactors of AA), Wilson's detox included delirious belladonna. Among the many ways in which participation in Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) helps its members stay sober, two seem to be the most important: spending more time with people who support efforts toward sobriety and greater confidence in the ability to maintain abstinence in social situations. Open AA meetings, which anyone can attend, are usually speaker meetings, where an AA member tells their story what it was like, what happened and what it's like now. .
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