Fri. Mar 29th, 2024

Since its inception in 1935, Alcoholics Anonymous(AA) is still the most common alcoholism recovery program. While there are other recovery programs like detox programs from McShin Foundation, the AA group has at least two million members today. People who previously drank excessively realized they couldn’t manage it and have adopted a better lifestyle without alcohol. AA fellowship primarily aims at helping victims of alcoholism through recovery and lifelong sobriety whenever they engage for assistance. 

In essence, AA doesn’t partake in research related to alcoholism, mental or medical health therapy, teaching, or outreaches. However, members can do so of their own volition. The association utilizes the approach of cooperation over affiliation when working with other groups dealing with the alcoholism issue. Historically, Alcoholics Anonymous doesn’t receive or solicit monetary help from outside parties, and the members maintain strict confidentiality in print or electronic media, similar to other public domains.

Business owners, religious figures, community organizations, police officers, care and support staff, teachers, military personnel, institutional officials, members of labor unions, among other people, have all had free access to AA programs. However, AA doesn’t endorse, sponsor affiliates with, or make any statement regarding other organizations’ programs in sobriety initiatives, because such activities would betray the Fellowship’s fundamental goal. 

Instead, representatives of the groups, intergroup, plus regional assemblies elect official members to handle AA’s relationships with other professional organizations, institutions, establishments, and people interested in addressing alcoholism issues.

Alcoholics Anonymous: The Twelve Steps

AA, as an initiative, appears to be relatively successful from the perspective that victims who have overcome their alcoholism problem have an excellent aptitude for connecting and assisting other victims struggling with alcoholism. In its most basic form, AA initiatives work when recovered alcoholics tell newcomers about their past drinking problems, recounting the sobriety they have achieved within AA. Then, they welcome newcomers to be a part of the Fellowship.

The essence of these recovery initiatives encompasses these Twelve Steps recounting the journey of the group’s early members:

  1. The acknowledgment that you have no control over drinking and that your life has gotten chaotic.
  1. The realization that powers bigger than your existence can restore you to sanity.
  1. Choose to commit your will and life under the protection of God, whom you understand in your way.
  1. You perform an extensive and courageous moral assessment of yourself.
  1. You admit the reality of your wrongful acts to God, yourself, and other people.
  1. Be willing to have God repair all your character flaws.
  1. You humbly request that He eliminate your flaws.
  1. You make a list of people you have hurt and are open to apologizing to everyone on it.
  1. Wherever feasible, make direct reparations to such persons unless harmful to them and others.
  1. You continuously do a self-assessment and confess whenever you’re wrong.
  1. Seek to enhance your awareness interaction with God while understanding Him via prayers and meditation. Prayers will exclusively help you know His will for everyone and the capacity to follow through with it.
  1. As a consequence of your spiritual enlightenment through these phases, you aim at spreading the word to other victims of alcoholism, using these ideals throughout your interactions.

Should the new members be reluctant, unable to embrace or complete the Twelve Steps entirely, nothing obligates them to do so. In turn, the earlier members usually advise them to be open-minded and participate in meetings where former alcoholics relate their recovery situations and study AA material that describes and interprets the AA approach.

AA participants will frequently highlight to beginners that problem drinkers usually know whether they’re alcoholic or not by themselves. While at it, they will also emphasize that all proven medical evidence suggests alcoholism’s a growing disorder untreatable in the conventional ways. Yet, you can halt it by absolutely abstaining from alcohol.

The Value Of Staying Anonymous

In the past, AA participants have been keen on ensuring anonymity in the public sphere, including the newspaper, broadcast, television, cinema, and other media avenues like the Internet; this unwillingness to go out in public was previously understandable in the earlier stages of AA. Then, the label “alcoholic”  had so much stigma than it does now. With the AA Fellowship developing, the beneficial qualities of privacy got clear.

For starters, most problem drinkers can be hesitant to seek support from Alcoholics Anonymous if they believe their issues will be out in public. Beginners should get assistance with total confidence that their information remains private.

Furthermore, the notion of anonymity offers a spiritual connotation to recovering patients since it inhibits any cravings for power, recognition, profit, or status that have produced problems in other communities. A lot of relative efficacy is susceptible to loss when victims of alcoholism rely on public attention.

By Manali