Alcoholics Anonymous, Part 1

Alcoholics Anonymous partnered with our psychiatry and ethics programs last month to educate our class about the organization: what it is and is not, its history, and its mission. I knew very little about AA except from what I've seen in movies and TV shows (admittedly not the best sources). For example, I was surprised that AA is entirely apolitical, making no contributions to candidates and taking no stances on propositions or legislation. I was also surprised by the spiritual (not religious) character of AA, as is apparent in their iconic Twelve Steps:

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.

In addition to this informational lecture, we were also given an assignment to attend an AA meeting. The idea is that we should have a good understanding of what AA is all about if we will be referring our patients to AA. For example, AA may not be so great for a staunch atheist.

I will be attending my first AA meeting this afternoon. It was surprisingly very easy to find a meeting. I found the Denver Area Central Committee of Alcoholics Anonymous website simply by googling "Denver alcoholics anonymous," then I clicked on the "meetings" tab. There are dozens of meetings every day around the Denver metro area, each one with its own flavor.

I have mixed feelings about attending an AA meeting. On the one hand, I'm very curious about what it will be like and the kinds of people I will meet. On the other hand, I wonder whether my presence will make some people there feel uncomfortable. Apparently it's common for health care professionals to sit in on open meetings to learn more about AA. Listening to some of my classmates talk about their experiences at AA meetings, I realize that it's a crapshoot as to what my meeting will be like. In fact, we were taught that we should instruct our patients to attend multiple meetings until they find the one that's right for them. So, I basically have no idea what to expect from my AA meeting this afternoon, and I'm going into it with an open mind.