Self-Help Group: Alcohol Anonymous - Essay Sample

Introduction

The self-help group, Alcohol Anonymous, was formed to support members to overcome addiction. It is generally an all-inclusive group as depicted in its diverse demography. Precisely, the group consists of 15 members of which nine are males while six are females. Other than gender, the group was also racially diverse as it consisted of 5 whites, 4 African-Americans, 3 Latinos, and 3 Asian-Americans. The group meeting was held on March 5, 2019, at noon in a hall at Saint Michael Catholic Community. The surrounding had a quiet and cool atmosphere since it was a church environment. Generally, the surrounding was cool by virtue of being a church environment. Optimism and serious tones engulfed group meeting.

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The group meeting was largely marred with mixed feelings. On a personal account, I felt great to attend the meeting because I perceived it as an excellent opportunity to share with others their story on addiction. Additionally, I felt quite happy to attend the meeting because we had an interesting discussion over addiction. Members of the group were from different demographic settings and so presented their unique experiences with addiction. I also felt strong and encouraged to be among a group of individuals committed to tackling the same challenge. Initially, I was uncomfortable to share my story during the meeting for fear of being judged. However, I gained more comfort as the meeting progressed due to the high level of openness among members. Everyone spoke their mind openly.

My level of comfort was also high during the meeting because I have always interacted and socialized with most of the members on other platforms. The meeting went as per my expectations in several ways. First, members engaged actively during the deliberations. Everyone contributed positively to address addiction as a serious issue. Second, as I expected, the meeting was free from distractions. Members concentrated on the agenda of the day and ensured every item on the agenda list was adequately deliberated on. Nevertheless, the meeting deviated slightly from my expectations when members took a long time to deliberate on matters that I thought members would find it easy to conclude, for instance, risk factors to addiction.

As one of the major learning outcomes, I discovered that a self-help group is voluntary which makes it suitable to address addiction. A typical self-help group such as the Alcohol Anonymous is formed on the basis of open membership and willingness to address an issue of common interest. I also learned that a self-help group is participatory in nature making it suitable to discourse a pressing issue. Members of Alcohol Anonymous shared their personal experience, knowledge, offered considerable help on how to help others overcome addiction.

I noticed during the meeting that the self-help group gives members an opportunity to share the responsibility to overcome a challenge. Members of the group Alcohol Anonymous took up various roles to help those struggling with addiction. Being democratic in nature, Alcohol Anonymous gave members equal opportunities to contribute during deliberations. As a result, the outcomes of the meeting could not be predicted with certainty. My main take away from the meeting was the importance of self-help group as a response strategy to addiction. Just as the Alcohol Anonymous, self-help groups give members ample time to pull their efforts together to support each other and respond adequately to addiction as a challenge.