This past week I attended a Newcomers AA meeting in Lancaster at a local church. While there I saw many different things that both surprised me and even inspired me. The meeting was an open, discussion meeting. The meeting was started with an introduction by Leonard, who was running the meeting. He talked about the purpose of the meeting and talked about other meetings that are available that people could sign up for. After the introduction different people read sections from the AA handbook that they use, as well as the twelve steps of AA meetings. Once the readings were concluded Leonard talked about the topic he chose for the day's meeting and shared an experience he had with the topic. Then around the room different people would talk about things that they felt applied to the topic as well.
Overall, there were not many people in attendance to this meeting. There were nine men that attended the meeting. From my observations majority of them came from Lancaster or a nearby city and from listening to their stories many of them grew up living on the streets. About four of the men at the meeting were alcoholics who had been sober for at least more then 10 years. To me it seemed as if they came to this newcomers meeting in order to provide a sense of hope and stability for the newcomers fighting their addictions. One of the men there said that he had just celebrated his 26th year of being sober and another said that he made it priority to attend a meeting every night of the week in order to stay on top of his sobriety. The man running the group, Leonard, also said how it was his birthday and he couldn't be more happy to be at the meeting and not out drinking like he use to typically do to celebrate his birthday or other events.
Along with the members who had been sober for a good amount of time, there was one young man who was in his first 90 days of fighting his addiction. He talked about how he had already attended a meeting that morning but felt like there was something drawing him to this particular meeting and he could not of been more happy that he had attended it. Leonard had introduced the topic of the day to be "Just For Today", and the young man talked about how that motto is the one thing that he is trying to live by. He told us how he takes each day one step at a time and had recently bought a book on the topic of just one day at a time and only being a quarter of the way done the book he felt more inspired then ever to take it one day at a time and beat his addiction. I felt inspired by his story because he was so new at trying to beat his addiction and yet seemed so determined to succeed and not fall back into his old patterns.
Another man told his life story, which also made an impact on my life. He talked about how he grew up in a house with an alcoholic father and a mother who passed away when he was six years old. The man said how he never knew anything else then alcoholism and so from the time he was 12 to 24 he drank a great deal. At 24 though he realized he had dreams he wanted to accomplish and decided to overcome his addiction. He was able to overcome it and got married, had children, and became an architect, like in his childhood dreams. After many years though he reached a breaking point again and started to go to the bars and nightclubs. He told us how he almost lost everything in his life. He was about to be homeless and almost lost his wife and kids. Once again he realized that this lifestyle was not what he wanted and that he needed to be there for his family so he started attending AA meetings and now has been sober for quite a few years. It was inspiring to see how thankful he was for overcoming his addiction and finally being able to be there for his family.
I personally was not very involved in the meeting. When we first arrived they asked us if it was our first meeting so we said that we were students there to observe and so they asked us a bit about what our assignment was and where we went to school. When the serenity prayer was cited I joined in on that, and at the end of the meeting everyone stood in a circle, held hands and prayed, which I also partook in.
Overall, I feel as though this meeting was helpful to the participants that attended. Many of them talked about how the meetings have helped them to stay on track and give them a sense of a higher power that is guiding them through their journey. They all seemed to be very supportive of each other and talked about how inspired they felt by the things they talked about at the meeting.
The concepts I observed in this meeting can definitely relate to the concepts we have learned in class so far. The biggest connection I saw was the cycle of addiction. Every member in attendance to the meeting talked about how at one point or another they have all gone through a relapse. Them saying this made me remember how the cycle works and when things go bad in a person's life they begin to use again and then that same order just keeps occurring. A common concept this meeting related to was the idea of what an addiction is. Just as we talked about the definition in class and the characteristics that come along with addiction, I saw that in all the stories told by the members. Attending this meeting definitely gave me a better understand of how addictions can really affect a person's life and gave me a new insight to how AA meetings really work. I enjoyed this experience and am very glad that I attended this specific meeting.
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