Community Experience

Community Experience

• List the meeting date, location, and leader’s first name.

The meeting took place on a Friday.

It took place at Anderston & Kelvingrove Parish Church, 759 Argyle St.

The leader was Erin O Neal

It started at 20.00 hours and went on for 1 hour and 30 minutes

• Describe the environment where the meeting was held. Describe the interpersonal dynamics (how members interacted) at the meeting. Discuss what you expected the meeting to be like and what it was actually like.

The meeting took place in a church environment. Since it was on a Friday, the area had fewer people than there are on Sundays. The environment was quiet, and no distractions from outsiders. Every member who shared their experience during the meeting was clearly audible. All the members that spoke shared how they have been going about their recovery as well as the problems they were experiencing along the way. The main problem for most of them was the temptation to join their friends for the drink when called along. There were members who had recovered fully, and they encouraged the others to keep trying until the urge disappears.

While sharing, the interpersonal dynamics that they used included body movements and hand gestures. Body movements were in tandem with how they were sharing their stories. Since it was the first time I was attending the meeting with my friend, I was afraid, and I thought that people would be silent, especially because two of us were strangers in the meeting. However, that was not the case. During the meeting, everyone seemed to be free with each other. All the members who shared their stories did it well without fearing anyone or anything. They were ready to transform. 

• Discuss your personal views and feelings about alcoholism before and after attending the AA meeting; what are they and what led to them? Did they change? (If you went to a different type of meeting, adjust you answer to appropriately match the focus of the meeting)

My view about alcoholism has always been that it is a self-inflicted behavior that one can abandon any time they wanted to. At some point, everyone is taught that if one gets used to taking alcohol, they would end up getting addicted. Before attending the meeting, my views were still the same. When anyone tried to convince me that they have been trying to stop drinking for some time and were not able to, I felt that they were not genuine.

However, after attending the meeting, as every person was sharing, I realized that alcoholism was like a disease. At some point it does not show symptoms and an individual feels that they are fine by taking small quantities after some time. Once they get addicted, it becomes a habit that is difficult to deflect from. After the meeting, I learned that every person was yearning to heal from the it, everyone should be ready to help the addicts in any way they can. Those who were able to heal can share their stories with on how they made it, while the general public can help by listening to them. 

• Describe how you will use knowledge gained from the AA meeting in your future nursing practice.

I gained a wide range of knowledge from the meeting. This will be useful in my future nursing practice. I learned that creating an environment that is conducive for people to recover is very important. Although addicts do not look forward to going for the first of such meetings, once they get there, they are able to continuously attend them later. Addicts feel that attending the meeting is extremely shameful, dreadful and out of despair. For them, there is much fear and trembling. A majority of individuals going to AA for the first time do so reluctantly, either because they promised other people to go, or because they were directed to attend. As a nurse, I will ensure that I direct affected individuals to attend, and make the follow-ups. I will be urging my clients to be free and share the problems they face because I learned that sharing is highly therapeutic.