Alcoholics anonymouses

The Alcoholics anonymouses (English: in Alcoholics Anonymous , AA ) is groups of mutual aid intended to accompany by the people wishing to put an end to their dependence opposite alcohol, it does not matter that them Alcoolisme is chronic or episodical.

Here how they are usually defined in introduction at the time of the assemblies, also called meeting : The Alcoholics anonymouses are an association of men and women who divide between them them experiment, their force and their hope with an aim of solving their common problem and to help of other alcoholics to be restored. The desire to stop drinking is the only condition to become member of the AA. The AA require neither contribution nor import duty; we are financed by our own contributions. The AA are associated with no sect, religious confession or policy, with any organization or establishment; they do not wish to engage in any controversy; they do not endorse and do not dispute any cause. Our original intention is to remain abstemious and to help of other alcoholics to become it.

A little history

In May 1935, Bill W., principal founder of the movement, meets Doctor Bob. June 10th 1935, Dr. Bob takes his last alcohol glass. It is the date appointed officially to mark the beginning of the movement Alcoholics anonymouses. The name of the group comes from the Gros Book (title original: Alcoholics Anonymous , called Big Book ).

Joseph Kessel, by his work With the alcoholics anonymouses (Gallimard 1962. ISBN 2070747859), a report on the AA in the United States, contributes to make known them in France and Europe. This book brings back a voyage among men in perdition who get busy to help their former companions in misfortune.

The writer Lawrence Block created the character of “ Matt Scudder ”, trying to stop alcohol with the AA. One finds there a good description of the method used by the AA.

Operation

A basic principle of the AA is anonymity: all the participants are thus equal, none can be mediatized or stigmatized more than another. There are no therapeutists, nor of framing of any kind. The method rests on a programme of raising in 12 Stages, the exchange of Expérience S forces and hopes and the division of emotion S: " An alcoholic who speaks with others alcooliques".

In the majority of the countries (or parts of country), there exists a board of directors, with renewal of the mandates, which is the official part of the movement. This council is in charge of the maintenance of the services to the alcoholics and their groups. The autonomous Groups control these boards of directors via deputy elected officials brought together in conferences " nationales" periodicals.

Delegates of the various boards of directors share their experiments of service in held world meetings every 2 years. The AA accept neither gifts, nor subsidies, in order to preserve their independence, and are financed, for the coffee been useful during the meetings for example. Whenever the town halls or the churches lend their buildings for the meeting holding, the AA prefer to discharge a rent, always to keep their independence. In the same way, the AA refuse to be recognized of public utility.

The AA do not claim to replace the Médecine: they wish to give a beneficial support for the alcoholics, total abstainers or not.

Any alcoholic having the desire to stop drinking can attend the meetings of the AA. In the cities or areas where there exist many groups, one can thus attend several meetings per day. There is no concept of inscription or contribution: each one is free to attend the number of meetings which it wishes, to present itself or not, of speaking or not.

“Prayer of serenity”

This maxim, recited by the participants in the majority of the meetings of group AA, was regarded by the writer Kurt Vonnegut as one of strongest ever emitted in the history of humanity. It has a stoical aspect in any case very .

Bill W., cofounder of the AA, said Prayer of serenity: “We had never seen such an amount of AA in if few words. ” In the book the movement of the AA becomes adult , Bill tells that at the beginning of 1942, the first national secretary of the AA, Ruth Hock, showed him, with him and others in their small encumbered office of New York, an announcement of death in the Herald Tribune of New York which finished as follows:

My God, gives us the serenity of accepter

the things which we cannot change,

courage to change the things which we can,

And wisdom to know the difference of it.

Somebody suggested printing this Quatrain on charts format wallets to include it in the correspondence of the office, and thus the Prayer of serenity made its way to become integral part of life AA.

Since, it was translated in the many spoken languages by the members in the whole world, said aloud in the meetings and in silence in the heart.

In spite of years of work by serious researchers, and much of assumptions by researchers amateurs, the exact origin of the Prayer of serenity remains a mystery. However, a thing seems uncontested: it is the claim of paternity of Dr. Rheinhold Niebuhr, which said in an interview that he had written it as conclusion with a sermon that he had pronounced. But even Dr. Niebuhr added: “Of course, it can be appeared sporadically during the years, even of the centuries, but I do not believe it. I believe sincerely that I wrote it myself. ” With its permission, the prayer was printed on charts during the Second world war and distributed to the troops. It also had been already taken again by the National Council off Churches and the AA.

The AA, without being a religious group, often refer to a “ power supérieure ”, calling upon the concept of Spirituality.

Meetings

Meetings AA propose to follow a programme of re-establishment in twelve Stages, and this in the respect of the twelve traditions of association.

There are primarily two types of meetings:

the meetings open during which the members tell how they drank, how they knew AA and how the program helped them. One can bring parents or friends to it. Usually, any person interested by AA is also the welcome with these open meetings.

the closed meetings are reserved to the members of the AA or for any person who could have an alcohol problem. the desire to stop drinking is the only condition to be member of has A.

They give to the members the opportunity speech between them of the problems involved in their old practice to drink and of the efforts which they made to acquire a durable sobriety. They also make it possible to explore in detail the various elements of the program of re-establishment. This program comprises twelve stages.

Abstinence

The AA propose a programme of total abstinence in twelve stages. The members abstain from taking glass, the first, one day at the same time. One remains abstemious for 12 midnight … and one repeats the operation the every day.

Elements of comprehension

Jean-Paul Descombey, psychiatrist and alcoologist, being helped of the psychoanalytical theory, detect among its alcoholic patients a kind of lack to being constitutive, a narcissistic deficit , leading the subject to seek a instinctual Objet perfect through alcohol. It points the taste of the alcoholics for the group: regroupings with the coffee, the bottle, the hospital, the alcoholics would tend to gather together. It supposes whereas associations nephalists such as the Alcoholics anonymouses would play a beneficial part of support identificatoire, replacing the object “ bouteille ” by the object “ groupe ”.

G. Valiant, being based on the data collected on two groups of young men followed since 1940 fact state of the following results: the mechanism of action of the AA consists according to him of four factors: the external support, the substitution of the dependence, new social relations based on the mutual care and an amplified spirituality. According to him, the AA appear equal or higher than the conventional treatments of the Alcoolisme, without one being able to locate side effect.

Several researchers confirm the utility of the AA in a treatment alcoologic: the groups taking part at the same time in the treatment and the programs of the AA have a more important rate of remission without relapse.

a study of Zemore and Kaskutas (2004) watch that the more acquired sobriety is of long life, the more the subjects spend time to help the community and are implied in the spirituality of the AA (containing Théisme and of transcendence of oneself). Thus, once started convalescence, the group offers activities to the measurement of the new means discovered by the alcoholics, that they can invest within the AA.

It seems in a general way that an implication of long time and constant in the meetings and groups AA is of good forecast with regard to the remission and the maintenance of the abstinence.

Diffusion

In XXIe century, the AA are present in 162 countries and more than 100.000 groups approximately 2 million members gathers.

In addition to operation by the meeting holding organized by groups (620 in France), themselves managed by committees whose members are elected, of the sites or the forums take part in the solidarity and the transmission of the message of the AA. The groups on line, such as aa-francophonie and aa-francity, are for the majority members of the OIAA.

Others

Mike Portnoy (the beater of the group of progressive metal Dream Theater and itself alcoholic at one time), wrote and writes always a series of songs taking again the 12 stages of the program of the Alcoholics anonymouses. These songs are distributed on the various albums of the group since Six Dismantle Inner Turbulence Off. To date, four songs relate to this topic in the discography of DT and each one includes/understands several stages of the program of the AA:

- The Glass Prison on Six off Dismantle Inner Turbulence, which deals with the first three stages (Reflection, Restoration, Revelation);

- This Dying Drunk on Train off Thought, which treats fourth and fifth stages of the program (Reflection off Reality and Release);

- The Root off All Evil on Octavarium, which approaches the sixth and seventh stages (Ready and Remove);

- Repentance on Systematic Chaos, which comprises the eighth and ninth stages of the program (Regret and Restitution).

Mike affirmed that once its series of songs on the Alcoholics anonymouses finished, the unit should form a musical continuation of an about sixty minutes.

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