ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS

Alcoholics Anonymous

Alcoholics Anonymous

Introduction

If you are having drinking problems and have resorted to attend the Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, you are probably determined to get rid of alcoholism. However, as with any new experience, you probably have butterflies in your stomach and wondering what the Alcoholics Anonymous 12 Steps meeting is all about and how can attending a simple AA meeting be helpful in your state. An AA meeting can be opened or closed. Open meeting invites anybody irrespective of their status - alcoholic or non alcoholic. Closed meetings are only for people who admit they have a drinking problem and want to stop it. Meetings are also held in foreign languages. Since it is an open meeting with no membership, most of them have a curious mix of people from different classes of society, different backgrounds and different ages. However, do not be shy as all they have come to attend the meeting for the same objective - to stop drinking.

Discussion and Analysis

The twelve steps are a method of recovery from addictive, compulsive, or otherwise hurtful behaviors. The steps are practiced by those who seek to recover from such behaviors. The twelve steps are actions that the recovering person takes in order to recover. In summary (the exact wording may be found in Alcoholics Anonymous) the steps are first, that one admits powerlessness over the behavior; second, that one believes in the restorative capacity of a higher power; third, that one makes a decision to accept spiritual guidance; fourth, that one takes a moral inventory; fifth, that one recounts that inventory in full to oneself, to another person, and to one's higher power; sixth, that one becomes ready to have one's higher power remove one's defects of character; seventh, that one asks one's higher power to remove one's defects of character; eighth, that one makes a list of those one has harmed; ninth, that one makes appropriate amends to everyone on the list; tenth, that one continues to practice steps four through nine; eleventh, that one prays and meditates; twelfth, that one helps others with the same problem recover. What has had a greater effect on literature, however, than the twelve steps themselves, are the jargon, opinions, and views regarding addiction that are common among twelve-step programs. The twelve-step perspective is expressed in Alcoholics Anonymous and other twelve-step books. (John, 1994)

The twelve-step perspective can be traced to the beginning of Alcoholics Anonymous in 1935. The text and primary reference of this support group, Alcoholics Anonymous, was published in 1939, and its companion piece, Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, was published in 1952. The theories about alcoholism that are expounded in Alcoholics Anonymous have become widely and popularly accepted, even by those who have never heard of the book. Thus, literature in the twentieth century has been generally influenced by the twelve-step perspective on alcoholism and other addictions. Twelve-step programs have affected — by means of their own literature, by means of writers who have experienced twelve-step programs, and by means ...