Albanie Stoddard

Psychology 1010-008
April 12, 2014
Signature Assignment

Alcoholics Anonymous Meeting

When I attended an AA meeting it was my very first time. I had
never experienced anything quite like it and it was very eye opening to
me. It started out with the main speaker and then eventually opened
up to open dialogue, where the alcoholics, the friends, the family, or
any observer could participate and speak if they felt the need to do so.
This was an open meeting where I was able to go and sit and listen and
observe.

It started and the main speaker began with a prayer, saying

Thank you for not judging. In the bible it says Jude ye not ye shall not
be judged. I felt very moved myself by that verse and as she
continued her opening I began to realize that AA meeting are all about
a higher power, God, and that these people rely on their beliefs and
the help of this higher power to steer them in the correct direction and
to heal them; mind, body, and soul. These Alcoholics are taking it one
day at a time saying, Im going to be sober today. They arent
thinking of yesterday or tomorrow its all about the moment they are
living in and trying their hardest to stay on track in that exact moment.
I have to give the people who dont ever give up props. They are

fighting a battle within them selves and they are slowly winning, dayby-day.

I love the fact that they have sponsors. You arent going through
this along. So many people at the meeting had sponsors but they also
had their family and friends who were with them every step of the way.
To me it is so important to have that support system of how every
many people you can get. And when I experienced this AA meeting I
realized thats all these people are looking for. They need and want
that satisfaction that they are making themselves happy as well as
other people. They want to know that they are doing something right in
the world not only for themselves but the people they are surrounded
by.

When I got home from the meeting I wanted to do a little

research because I felt so moved by the many people who shared their
stories and were brave enough to do so or even brave enough to show
their faces and take in what they needed to help get them to a
healthier life. I wanted to know definitions of the 12 steps to sobriety,
so here they are;
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 and fearless
moral inventory of ourselves. 5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another
human being the exact nature of our wrongs. 6. Were entirely ready to have
God remove all these defects of character. 7. Humbly asked Him to remove
our shortcomings. 8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became

willing to make amends to them all. 9. Made direct amends to such people
wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. 10.
Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly
admitted it. 11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our
conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for
knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. 12. Having had a
spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this
message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
http://silkworth.net/aa/12steps.html

When reading each and every step you realize these people struggle
everyday, I could tell in the meeting when some started crying or
shared a traumatic experience as to why they are the way they are
today. Not only do they have to live everyday worrying about bills, their
families, where they are going to sleep, how they are going to eat, but
also staying sober and fighting that urge and battle every second of
the day.

If I have the opportunity to go to a meeting again I definitely

would. There is no way that anyone couldnt benefit from a meeting.
Whether you are an alcoholic or not I would encourage you to go. If you
have someone in your life that attends meetings go with hem and
support them, the need it.