...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...
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...Alcoholics Anonymous is and organized group of people who commonly share the same problem in regard to excessive drinking. AA’s only requirement to enter into the program is that you must want to stop drinking. Of course there are AA membership fees that you will have to pay in order to remain a member. The main goal and purpose of this program is to maintain sobriety without any relapse. This program has proven that it is effective however if the person entering the program is not committed to getting better nine times out of ten he or she will not gain sobriety. (Ragels, 2011) A five percent success rate is nothing more than a spontaneous remission in alcohol addiction. Out of any given group of alcoholics, approximately five percent per year will quit. They get tired of being tired and cannot handle the stress that follows from watching their friends die from the same thing. If one should enter into this program you will learn the twelve steps of Alcohol Anonymous. These steps are the bread and butter for obtaining sobriety in the Alcohol Anonymous 12 Step Program. (Orange, 2011) 1. You must admit that you where powerless and that your life was unmanageable. 2. You believe that that a much higher power greater than your self could restore your sanity. 3. Your will and your life are to be turned over to the care of God. 4. Searching and fearless moral recollection of ourselves. 5. Admit the exact nature of your wrongs. 6. Ready to have all defects...
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...Alcoholic Anonymous (AA) is a self-help group developed to help and support alcoholics maintain sobriety. AA has a twelve-step model that helps guide alcoholics to sobriety. I attended an AA meeting that was held in a church. At the beginning of the meeting, the group said the serenity prayer. The prayer encourages the participants to make changes in their lives. Following the prayer, introductions were made by the members of the group. The members stated their names and some of them said that they were alcoholics. The theme of the meeting was “Letting Go, Letting God”. There was a featured speaker who discussed how letting go of insignificant problems helps improve the quality of your life and bring you closer to God. He stated that AA meeting...
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...ALCOHOLIC ANONYMOUS MEETING EXPERIENCE Locating an AA meeting was very easy. I had researched online various times, locations, and types of meetings in Essex County. I was surprised by how many meeting locations were in my neighborhood. Through this source I was able to find an AA meeting that was within a reasonable distance as I did not want to attend one the was close to my house because I did not want to meet someone I know at the meeting. Online resource for finding a location was easy and the name and address including directions to the location was at some web site assessed. The meeting I attended was at a local church 10 miles away in West Orange New Jersey. There were 19 people excluding myself, 10 women and 9 men. The one hour meeting started at 8pm and was very interesting and informative. I attended the meeting alone on a Sunday night. I was quite apprehensive about going to a meeting, more so than I expected to be and I was nervous about being invasive to the privacy of AA members. I was expecting to see more men than women because I was thinking that men drink alcoholic beverages more than women. My imagination, with the help of television and movies, painted a picture in my mind of what an AA meeting would be like. It portrayed a room filled with people that obviously looked like addicts; unkempt appearances, borderline offensive hygiene, and at least one person emitting a radiance of booze while swaying back and forth in his chair. I also expected that being...
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...Alcoholics Anonymous Group Observation Project Christopher Estacio Kaplan College Las Vegas NU242 Mrs. Sevilla May 3rd, 2014 Alcoholics Anonymous The mental health group that I chose for the group observation project was the local Alcoholics Anonymous group at the Serenity Club Las Vegas. I chose this particular location due to the fact that it is open 24 hours, has several different 12-step groups, and also provided literature on the various 12 step programs. The club also offered a snack bar, seating area, TV, pool table, and other recreational activities for the patrons to enjoy before and after their group meetings. I went on Thursday, the 5th of May and the meeting started promptly at 12:00pm and ended at 1:05pm. The topics of the day were step 8 (making a list of all persons harmed and willing to make amends with them) and step 9 (made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others) in the “Big Book”. The “Big Book” is the text that serves as the basis of A.A. It contains the 12 steps that at the fundamentals of the AA program as well as several stories about alcoholics that have recovered from the process. According to the Alcoholics Anonymous Central Office, “The main and primary purpose of the alcoholics anonymous group is to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety.” The population that are served are both men and women who share their experience, strength and hope with each other that they may solve...
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...Alcoholics Anonymous or A. A. is "an internal fellowship of men and women who have had a drinking problem. It is a non-professional, self-supporting, multiracial, a political and available almost everywhere. There are no age or education requirements. Membership is open to anyone who wants to do something about his or her drinking problem" (Alcoholics Anonymous, 2018, Online). Founded in 1935 by Bill Watson and Dr. Bob Smith, AA functions to help those with self-identified drinking problems. It defines its primary purpose as "to carry its message of recovery to the alcoholic seeking help" (Alcoholics Anonymous, 2018, Online). A.A. seeks to fulfill this promise by providing free meetings that allow alcoholics to seek help with their drinking problem...
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...Alcohol anonymous and nicotine anonymous are groups organized for alcoholics and nicotine (pills, heroine, weed, tobacco, etc.) users who are trying to become clean and stop their addiction, recovering addict, or for a support group, to those who no longer abuse the substance. Both groups follow their own 12 step guide and prayer, which is read aloud at the beginning and end of meetings; According to The Twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous (1952, 1953, and 1981): 1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable. 2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. 3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. 4. Made a searching...
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...History Alcoholics Anonymous Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) refers to a fellowship of individuals who share their experience, strength, and hope with one another that they may solve their common problem and help one another in recovering from alcoholism. Alcoholism is an addiction to the consumption of alcoholic liquor or the mental illness and compulsive behavior resulting from alcohol dependency. The origins of AA trace back to the early 20th century. During that time, a religious movement in both Europe and the US, the Oxford Group, brought group of people together who practiced a formula of self-improvement by preforming self-inventory, admitting wrongs, making amends, using prayers and meditation, and carrying the message to others. During...
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...I attended both, the Narcotics Anonymous (NA) meeting named "Rock Solid Recovery" and the Alcoholic Anonymous (AA) meetings at "Visions", held during night time in Thousand Oaks. Each meeting was conducted in a large hall and had about 50 participants and the large turnover, even on a weekend, was surprising and impressive. The reason for choosing these meetings was firstly, the distance and timing and secondly, I wanted to attend the meetings which were running for several years because I was interested in having participants in various stages of recovery. As a result, at the NA meeting there were a few participants who were over 20 years sober and were fondly revered by other members. There was a considerably lesser number of women (30%...
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...To fulfill my course requirements for addictions class, I attended a twelve-step program for alcoholic anonymous. The program I decided to attend was Hill Lunch St Peter’s Rectory located at 313 2nd street southeast Washington DC. I chose this particular meeting to attend, because it was really close to home and very convenient. As I arrived at the location, I started to experience some anxiety, because I did not know what to expect. I was one of the first few people present at the meeting and I felt uncanny stares aimed towards myself. As people, started to trickle in and the meeting started. I realized that it was a very intimate meeting, since it was no more than ten people in the room. The facilitator was a white male who was dressed in...
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...I have found this summer course, to be one where I am learning a lot about myself and my family. This very assignment has been able to help me to foresee what is in store for me in dealing with addictions both mine own and helping others with theirs. Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), is a program that at first I thought was nothing more than a bunch of drunks, getting together and sulking in their sorrows. Oh! How I was wrong. AA is a program that is and has been helping individuals and families for over 80 plus years. I have learned that the principles of AA are ones that can be universally used to aid anyone in getting through some of life’s challenges. My experiences at my AA meetings have shown me that the program does indeed work. And most importantly people are accepted where they are and made to feel welcome. I was able to attend two Awakenings meetings in Plattsburgh. My first meeting I didn’t get to much interaction from others and things might have changed had I been able to stay through the end of the meeting. At my other meeting I was able to stay for the duration and I was able to interact with the group. I was able to see how a “newbie” would/could be turned away from an AA meeting. I met a lady in the meeting, whom I sat next to and she was able to introduce herself to help me feel at ease. However, throughout the meeting she took it upon herself to tell me about certain individuals in the group and picked apart pieces of others stories. I found this to...
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...I at attended the AA Alcoholics Anonymous meeting at the AdCare hospital on Lincoln Street on Tuesday March 8, 2016 from 6:30 to 7:30PM. As the meeting began everyone introduced themselves by their first name and told whether or not they were alcoholics or not. As everyone told their names the rest of the people welcomed them by their first name. At first I was really afraid to go to the meeting alone so I emailed my class fellows to see if someone wanted to go with me or not. I had never attended an AA meeting before so I did not know what it would be like. But when I went to the meeting and sat through it I slowly started to feel comfortable. I think one important role everyone played was that they were listing to other people’s conversations and replying...
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...Last night, I attended a Narcotics Anonymous meeting. This was not quite a new experience for me, be my late father was an alcoholic and narcotics addict that died of cirrhosis later on in my life this is why I identified myself with them. Narcotics Anonymous is a fraternity or association where there a recuperating addicts and their main purpose is stay clean. Consequently, the member of this fraternity were well-groomed, yesterday was ice cream sticks day where they had a keyword written on a little piece of paper, such as “perseverance”. Anyone can be a narcotics or alcohol user. Furthermore, as I stated previously Sunday night I attended was a NA meeting. This meeting included one woman and approximately eight men, all the attendees were recuperating addicts. Personally, I did not feel out place or anxious around them because, I identified myself with them by my personal experience with my father and myself being that some of the medication I take for both my emotional and physical disability are addictive as well. This experience was not any different from my experience with the Alcoholics Anonymous fraternity as well because I stayed sober or clean from my occasional drinking habits because suffer gastritis or acid reflux. . As the apostle Paul wrote inspired by God “Older men are to be quiet and to be careful how they act. They are to be the boss over their own desires. Their faith and love are to stay strong and they are not to give up; teach older women to be quiet...
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...Emergence of a Freedom of Information Movement: Anonymous, WikiLeaks, the Pirate Party, and Iceland – Jessica L. Beyer Key words: Activism, File Sharing, Politics, Hacktivism, New Media, Online Communities https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMxhIfG0MpY – 0:00-1:16 | 2:10-3:20 How do you guys feel about the government's interference within ideas of “Freedom of Information”? Are copyright acts more about the broader ideas of controlling information, or more-so the ability to protect people's information and original content? Do you think the youth, anonymous, and people like Kim DotCom are to blame for copyright infringement? How can freedom of information exist alongside copyright? He is knowingly hosting this website whilst people pirate. What kind of message is the US government sending to the world with the Kim DotCom raid? An over the top, 72-person raid on a single lot of land, occupied by one person who is simply hosting a website. Are ISP's as equal to blame as Kim DotCom is? They are allowing this file sharing to happen, since they profit off of the traffic. Should Denial-Of-Service attacks be viewed as protest, or criminal activity? Are they akin to a peaceful protest of not allowing entry to a workplace/space, or are they more in line with rioting which does have criminal activity, and criminal punishment attached to it? Is WikiLeaks committing criminal activity? They are releasing private, government documents, and allowing for this free flow of...
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...Anonymous Donor Saves Shelters English 112 Professor Tara Ciccarone DeVry University Two women’s shelter that have basically been on life support for nearly two decades are now fighting to keep their doors open as more and more debt piles up. On Wednesday, October 16th, 2013, Clara Kirk, a 72-year old woman, said she was having difficulties paying for two different gas and water bills at her shelters that she runs to provide for women and children in need. One of the bills was roughly $21,000 and another bill was around $11,000 (Hutson, 2013). Due to the fact that she was unable to take care of those bills, the gas was shut off on Wednesday, October 16, 2013. This left all of the helpless people without heat or hot water which forced them to go to nearby cafeterias so they could get cleaned up. Clara’s Place, which houses 19 women and children, is one of the two shelters that have run out of gas. The other shelter – Clara’s House – also has approximately 40 women and is also in devastating financial misfortune. Both of these shelters have struggled financially in recent years, facing punishments from the town for building code violations and consequences from the IRS for being overdue on their payroll taxes (Hutson, 2013). With temperature going below 30 degrees, residents of both of these shelters finally had something be happy for. An anonymous donor has contributed a rather large sum of money in order to keep the gas successfully running at the two Chicago...
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