Aa Meeting Reflection

The purpose of an AA meeting is for individuals to find strength and encouragement in one another as they continue in their sobriety journey. Meetings are conducted in small groups and each person has an opportunity to share what their experience has been living with alcoholism and most meetings are held in churches. From my experience, a topic is chosen at the beginning of the meeting. On this particular evening we started as a larger group and after a selection of topic was made, we broke off into smaller groups. I decided to attend the meeting with a fellow classmate, and she and I identified ourselves as graduate students during introductions. The topic chosen was gratitude and each person had the opportunity to share what gratitude meant …show more content…
My mother has struggled with addiction for most of my adult life and I have some open wounds around some of my experiences with her. Additionally, I have had some painful experiences with religion and given AA’s religious component, I was unsure of how I was going to feel afterwards. I felt it was important for me to have the experience of attending an AA meeting because I wanted to learn from those living with alcoholism, but I also wanted to step into something that was unfamiliar and quite possibly uncomfortable in the hopes of learning something about myself. The meeting I attended closed with the Lord’s Prayer, all of us joining hands in a circle. I decided to participate in the experience and sat with my discomfort, taking a mental log of my feelings. After I got home, I took my dog on a walk and revisited those feelings and thoughts. As I reflected, I took a moment to look at the importance of the closing activity to the other group members. Although this may sound trivial and simplistic, I think it was important for me to remember that my feelings are my own and that my feelings will come up when working with clients. More importantly, individuals get to decide what types of encouragement and comfort they need on their healing journey. Religion and Spirituality are often times very vital aspects of a person’s healing journey, providing a sense of belonging, community, hope and

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