The Global Challenge of Alcohol Addiction
The statistics of alcohol consumption around the world are terrifying: in terms of per capita consumption in different countries, even a dozen liters often come out. Today, there are many ways to deal with this addiction, which experts call chemical. After all, not only does a person abuse alcoholic beverages, but also often his family members: parents, wives, and even children may be involved in the addiction. Therefore, special attention is paid to the problem of alcoholism treatment. One of the steps on the road to fighting addiction is participation in the Alcoholics Anonymous community, which may put a person on the way to recovery.
Alcoholics Anonymous: Purpose and Membership
Alcoholics Anonymous is a community of people who have a problem with alcohol dependence and unite to help each other recover. Its central office is P.O. Box 459, Grand Central Station, New York, NY 10163, though the organization has branches across all the states and many countries. The Alcoholics Anonymous community aims to serve people with all types of addictions, including alcohol and drug addiction, across a broad geography of states.
Becoming a member of Alcoholics Anonymous is easy; it’s enough to come to a group and say, “I’m an alcoholic.” This is a pass to the community. Apart from taking part in group meetings that are available to every person willing to fight the addiction, all members of Alcoholics Anonymous have access to a telephone line where specialists provide consultations for free. So, even at times when no meetings are held, a person is not alone with their addiction.
Today, there are quite a lot of places where meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous are held. Since Alcoholics Anonymous is a non—profit organization, it does not have its meeting rooms. As a rule, they use the premises offered for meetings by charitable organizations, at temples, and in several drug dispensaries. There are even hospitals that provide meeting rooms. Meetings are also held in public law enforcement rooms. Many such groups exist in large cities, maybe even several in one district. The social issues the target population faces are alcohol and drug abuse, which may be combined with vagrancy, loss of all social contacts and ties, poverty, and homelessness.
Services and the 12-Step Program
The services the program offers are rehabilitation programs aimed at fighting dependence. One part of this program is psychological counseling and working with specialists, while other parts include group therapy, engagement in meditation and prayer, and establishing communication with society at large. Within the community, Alcoholics Anonymous members work with the “12 steps” program.
The program’s first step is to realize that a person has a problem and is willing to be helped (Sandstone Care, 2022). Once that is done, a treatment process can be started. As a rule, a person must acknowledge that there is a greater power than themselves that will guide them toward recovery (Sandstone Care, 2022). A person turns their life over to that power.
Alcoholics need to unite with others to cope in several spheres of life at once because the problem of chronic alcoholism has spiritual, psychological, and social aspects. For example, it should be a specialist at some stage who understands exactly the 12-step rehabilitation program, and helping each other also plays an important role when people recovering under the program share their experiences and show specific results (SOBER Project, 2015). The activities experienced during the community experience include communication and learning from each other to cope, working with a specialist, psychological and group therapy, medication, and prayer.
The rehabilitation program is based on a socio-bio-spiritual model of the disease itself and recovery from it. Moreover, it should be understood that recovery is not interpreted here as the result but is a process that a person carries out throughout their life. Alcoholism is a chronic disease; the treatment is to achieve a prolonged—term remission. Within the framework of the Alcoholics Anonymous community, a person changes both spiritually, psychologically, socially, and in everyday life, and learns to be independent of alcohol.
Communication Methods and Suggested Program Changes
Internally, the organization communicates through meetings and online discussions. There is also a telephone line where every member of Alcoholics Anonymous can call and get help. Externally, the organization holds annual forums to educate people about the problems and has web resources where each person may anonymously talk about their addiction problems.
Several changes may be introduced into the program to serve the community better. First of all, not all people are good with online resources or have access to them, so establishing a hotline where every person who is not a member may call and speak about their addiction would be beneficial for the community. Thus, the organization can help more people in older age groups.
Secondly, since alcoholism is not only a spiritual but also a chemical problem, at the initial stages, detoxification activities may be offered to Alcoholics Anonymous members to help them tackle the problem more effectively. Finally, group therapy sessions may include relatives of the people with an addiction to normalize relations within the families and help Alcoholics Anonymous members resume their social ties.
References
Sandstone Care. (2022). Alcoholics Anonymous 12 Steps | AA Meeting | Lauren Windle (Addiction Specialist) [Video]. YouTube. Web.
SOBER Project. (2015). S.O.B.E.R Project 12-step meeting, 9-15-15, part 1 [Video]. YouTube. Web.