12 Step Meeting Attendance

I attended Alcoholics Anonymous on February 21 at Second Calvary Episcopal Church with Rachel Scarbrough. Upon arriving, we were greeted by a man making coffee. There ended up being four men that attended the group. One man left after introducing himself. Another one came in late. One didn't speak, and the other got up after sharing his story. Honestly, this AA was very disappointing. It didn't possess any of the qualities that we learned about in class. Not only was the leader hard to understand, but the first fifteen minutes he inappropriately told stories of different relatives overdosing. During his stories, he smiled and laughed throughout making Rachel and I feel uncomfortable and not sure how to react. I do not know what to categorize his role as a facilitator. He did pass out the AA preamble as well as ask someone to read the 12 steps and Daily Reflection. I guess I would say he was a facilitator, but was not very hands on. He did not encourage participants. He possibly even discouraged his group members. He told story after story until one of the group members got very irritated and said, "What's today's topic? Let's get started." The leader reacted by handing him the book that included the Daily Reflection (that we had already read). The man reread the Daily Reflection, gave his testimony, then left the group. Before leaving, he wrote Rachel and I a note that said, "There are better run meetings than this check out the AA meeting schedule online... I suggest Come to Believe on Walnut Grove/union or Two Doors Down on Quince."

I think that this environment impacted this session greatly. Since the session was at noon, I think that is a hard time for people to make the meeting if they work full time. Also, for this location, we had to pay $6 to park which I think would turn people away from coming. This church was very busy with numerous events going on. If you were a person that did not want other people to know you were attending AA, this was not a good place to go. The church was very crowded and the room that AA was hosted in was in the middle of church. There weren't any signs, so the room was hard to find resulting in us having to ask someone where to go for AA, which could be embarrassing for some. In my opinion, this group was not therapeutic at all. It was poorly ran overall, and had no real content. It makes me sad because if someone was searching for help and this is the first AA meeting they attended, they would probably never come back. I would categorize this group as a self-management group because the group members we expected to be self-sustaining in attending, sharing, and following the 12- Steps.