I attended an alcoholics anonymous meeting in Whitefish Bay, WI with my classmate. We previously tried to attend a meeting in September, but were unfortunately turned away due to it being a closed meeting. The leader of the meeting was kind enough to let us know when the next open meeting would be, which was October 8th. I nervously returned to the church that night and didn’t know what to expect once we arrived, which caused some anxiety for me. We entered a cozy room and were greeted right away and took an open seat. When the meeting began, there were six other participants and the facilitator as well as Liz and I. The meeting started out by going around the circle stating our names and our birthday or how old we were and a fun fact about ourselves. When it came to my turn to give my name, I stated my name and age and stated that I was a pharmacy student. A couple of people were surprised when they heard what I actually did for a living. The meeting began by reading the preamble and the twelve steps to recovery of an alcoholic. This was very interesting to me as I was not aware of the focus they put on God, although he is referred to as simply a “higher power” by many of the participants. The topic of today’s AA meeting was gratitude. A few of the attendees chose to speak about their experiences and why they were grateful. One particular member’s brief story had an especially meaningful impact on me. Her name was ND. I decided that I wanted to talk to her one-on-one and ask her about how she became an alcoholic and what brought her into recovery. ND became an alcoholic when she went through a series of depressive episodes and sought alcohol to comfort her. She had lost a few friends in a car accident and her dog the same year that she became an alcoholic. She associates those events with her becoming an alcoholic because she didn’t want to feel