A A meeting experience
Afag Yasin
Hondros college
Psychosocial Nursing
5/29/14

AA meeting I was required to attend an open group support meeting to make an observation and write a paper about it. I chose to attend an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting at Oakland Park United Methodist Church. I was nervous because I have never been to AA meeting before , when I arrived to the meeting the nervous start to back off. I was very welcome at the meeting, even though I went with my uniform, everybody is friendly and they want to .I am glad that I went to this meeting it is great experience to have in your live. A guy starts the meeting by welcoming the new comers and some reading then a different man read the 12 steps that an alcoholic follows to gain seriousness. Then the lead was introduced and he had everyone go around the room and say their name. When everyone said their name they would say, "My name is ",,,. and I am an alcoholic." the guy giving the lead told about how he started drinking and the various experiences that he went through while drinking.
There were people young and old, male and female and black and white in the room. They were students, business people, retired people and blue collar workers with one thing in common -- addiction to a substance. Most were alcoholics, some were addicts and some even introduced themselves as an alcoholic and an addict. When I came to this meeting, I was really unaware that alcoholism was a real problem and originally I thought that people could simply withdraw from drinking on a whim, but once I heard the stories of the people in meeting it was extremely depression and pried my eyes to empathize and understand the severity of this problem. The book talk about 12th steps that alcoholics follows which 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