RUNNING HEAD: ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS EXPERIENCE

Alcoholics Anonymous Experience

Megan Priddy
Bon Secours Memorial College Nursing
March 9, 2016

ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS EXPERIENCE

When deciding to go to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, I was not aware that

there were so many types of meetings to attend. I ended up attending a womens only
Alcoholics Anonymous meeting at St. Michaels Catholic Church. This meeting was an
open meeting lead by a woman who was in charge of this particular group. The overall
purpose to this group was for the group to come together for their weekly meeting, and
this particular meeting they were going to review step one of the twelve step program.
This group was relatively small; there were about twelve members of the group not
including myself and another student that attended.
The group began with an opening and a welcome to everyone who was in
attendance. Next there was a prayer, followed by a reading of the introduction of
Alcoholics Anonymous. We then read aloud step one of the twelve step program, then if
anyone wanted to share how they overcame and are still overcoming step one, they were
allowed to at that time. Finally, there was the passing out of the sobriety chips and there
was only one person present who had not been sober for more than twenty years so she
received a chip. The meeting ended with all of us holding hands with a final prayer.
After attending this meeting I noticed that there was an instillation of hope within
this group. The members seemed to give hope to the youngest and newly sober member,
and she responded with gratitude and thanks for all the other members taking her under
their wings. Another curative factor that was present within this meeting was universality.
All of the members of this group knew that they were not in this alone and that if they
had a problem or thought that they were going to slip up and have a drink that they could
contact anyone present in the group and they could talk it out. Also these ladies were very
tight knit and they all had a common problem, which was being an alcoholic.

ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS EXPERIENCE

I also noticed the curative factor called altruism present within this meeting as
well. Again all of the women that attended this meeting seemed to have been attending
this same one for many years, and along with hearing all of their stories behind how they
began drinking it was evident that their knowledge and wisdom was being passed on to
the newest member of the group (Townsend, pg 169).
Step one of the twelve steps says that We admitted we were powerless over
alcohol --- that our lives had become unmanageable. To me this meant that it was the
hardest of the twelve steps for alcoholics to overcome. They had to admit not only to
others, but more importantly admit to themselves that they had a problem with being
addicted to alcohol. It was such a great experience to hear these women talk about how
much alcohol controlled their lives and once they finally hit rock bottom they were able
to seek out the help they needed and could move on with their lives and get the help they
needed (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, pg 21).
As far as an implication for patient care would be concerned would be that if a
patient came into the hospital and was having alcohol withdraw there is always that
possibility that going through that withdraw will make them very sick or even kill them.
More importantly once that patient goes through that period of withdraw they will have to
deal with the implications that go along with it. For example there was a woman at the
meeting, who would drive drunk all of the time, and thankfully she did not hurt anyone,
but she did get into a hit and run and the only way she got caught was that her license
plate had been left at the scene. So she had to deal with the implication of sitting in jail
for three months to deal with the aftermath of what she had done.

ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS EXPERIENCE

Overall, I had no idea as to what to expect going to an Alcoholic Anonymous

meeting. I was a little nervous about being there, but once I heard the women talk about
what they had each been through and how they are living alcohol free now, I thought it
was such an empowering meeting to attend. Not only will I be able to be more empathic
to my patients who may be recovering alcoholics but I also think that people should have
to attend one of these meetings just so that they can truly understand just how dangerous
alcohol can be to a person.

ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS EXPERIENCE

Reference
Townsend, M. C. (2014). Essentials of Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing (6th ed.).
Philadelphia, PA: F.A. Davis Company.
Twelve steps and twelve traditions. (1993). New York, NY: Alcoholics Anonymous
World Services.