Sociology

The Twelve Step Program is a series of guides formulated by a meeting of one well-
known surgeon and a New York broker at Akron, Ohio in 1935, to aid alcohol
dependents arrest the addiction from this substance. It was basically intended as a self-
help course since both were alcoholics and were desperate to find a cure to their
addiction.  In the progression of their regular conversations they were able to come up
with these steps to help them stay away from drinking. This program has been
acknowledged by the medical world as a very successful tool to achieve sobriety that
many substance abuse treatment centers has incorporated this principle into their
management course. Addictions to any substance like alcohol and other forms of drugs
are now recognized by the World Health Organization and other Medical Forum as a
disease which manifest on the unexplainable series of physical discomfort of craving and
withdrawal that its treatment program can be regarded as a medical issue. Addiction is
categorized as incurable in the type of diabetes but in the same manner controllable when
the substance of dependency is successfully withdrawn by process of total physical
abstinence.

Purpose of the Paper
This paper will make a presentation of an actual meeting of a 12-step group, making
observations from all aspect of the experience.  It will also include a proposition about
applying the program to non-addicts as a tool of addressing lifes complexities. It will be
an objective study of how such principle becomes an effective tool of arresting addiction
so that it became a world-wide reference to recovery.  From the original Alcoholics
Anonymous Program of Recovery it has evolved as a course of healing tool from other
addictions as drug, attitude and compulsive obsessions.

The Meeting Place
It is one of the rooms assigned to Alcoholics Anonymous Meetings by the Council of the
local church.  One member told me that they used to hold their meetings in the park, now
aside from this Parish space, they have a room in one of the downtown hotels because the
owners has a son who attended meetings.  This room is located in the elevated ground
floor of a three storey building. It is one in the barracks-style quarters that has a terrace
facing the river. The other rooms in this floor are offices of various religious
organizations of the church.  This room assigned to Alcoholics Anonymous is the first
one from the landing.  The porch is quite.  There are chairs scattered outside the offices.
I guess they were used by people who wanted a breath of fresh air from whatever
grueling situation one has inside. The river nearby is wide and it is silent.  You can see
people walking by its bank.  It has a comforting effect on me. A few people were
standing facing the river when I arrived, some of them we smoking cigarettes, none
talking.

The room was opened half an hour before the scheduled meeting.  Two men, who were
outside when I arrived, get in.  It was not a big room.  I mentally measured it to be about
a six by six meters square. From the outside, I saw posters on the wall.  It read, One Day
at a Time, Fake it till you Make It. One stated, An addict does not sought recovery
because he saw the light, but because he got burned. I thought it was not a very
inspiring statement. There are books too lined in a shelf.  Chairs were stacked in a corner
there was an electric coffee maker, a hot and cold water dispenser, and a bottle of instant
coffee in the stall, cups, and an electric fan in the ceiling. There is nothing that I can
consider as special or extraordinary in that room.  In fact, it looked very ordinary to be a
venue for people with big addiction problems.  That was my first impression. Although I
read reference books and articles regarding the simplicity of the program and what it
addresses to, I still have some reservations about it to be something with a medical
approach so that I expected the meeting place to be with an atmosphere of that of a
medical clinic.  The room was far from being one.

The two men who got inside were in their 40s.  They took one chair each and place it
without a pre-arranged system. People start arriving, I found out that the sitting
arrangement is circular and it is a self-service sitting condition.  You get your own chair
and your choice wherever you want to sit. There are about twenty people in the room.

The ages range from 20s to the 60s.  I learned that it was an open meeting of the
Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous. The later is a take-off from the
original organization. The atmosphere is very informal. Some have coffee.  Nobody
smoked. Before the meeting started, the members just keep quite.  The younger
attendance talked quietly in the corner. Others read books. They dressed casually two or
three younger men wore earrings. There are 5 women in the group. They looked just like
your regular neighbor with regular problems. There is a degree of casual strange in that
forum.  I believe that I am the newest one to attend their meeting yet there was no warm
welcome or any aggressive move for introduction or intrigue of my presence.  I was
hoping for any kind of response to my intrusion as a reason to make small talk but there
was none. The general atmosphere in that room is comfortable leave-alone   attitude.

The Meeting
It is a regular Saturday meeting.  A regular meeting is the daily meeting the 12-Steps
follower attended as a venue to express his feeling as a tool to recovery. We sit in a circle
and one is assigned Chairman for the day.  Before we started, he spelled the rules of the
gathering. The Serenity Prayer was recited, followed by the A.A. and N.A. Preamble.
Someone was asked to read the Twelve Steps and the Twelve Traditions of the group.
Since I was considered a Newcomer, we were asked to introduce our names. Members
introduce by saying his first name followed by his addiction as Im Joe, Alcoholic or Im
Jane, drug Addict, nothing else. It is part of the nameless principle of the assembly.

Nobody asked when I just said my name without any form of dependency identity to it.
Finally the Chairman invited everyone to share any of their feelings that they wanted to
tell the group. Member will identify his dominant feeling of the day especially of the
moment, particularly the one that brings so much discomfort to the speaker.  The five
basic feelings that the organization identified are sad, glad, mad, afraid and angry. There
are no restrictions as to what the sharer would say as long as he speaks for the self.  He is
not allowed to speak about of for another person. Making comments and agreeing or
disagreeing is discouraged.  If one member can relate to what the speaker shared, he has
to wait until it is his turned to speak. After one member has spoken, will then another can
speak.  Before he proceeds to talk of his issue, he introduced himself the same way it was
done at the start of the meeting. The primary purpose of the meeting is for the members
have a venue where he can express his dominant feeling of the moment which could
trigger him to seek release using the substance of his addiction. It could help greatly to
know that he is not alone of what he feels, that a group of recovering addicts and
alcoholic is there, each working towards not taking a drink or drug. In the meeting, the
comfort of a validated feeling, whatever it might be, is reassuring to the addict so that he
may be able to address the complexities of life without the help of alcohol or drugs.

The meeting goes smoothly, until one man, in his 40s shared about experiencing a
craving.  He looked very sad.  He is an alcoholic and he and his wife had a disagreement.
His wife accused him of wasting time going to meetings.  His wife wanted him to use his
time at the meetings in the shop they owned.  She could not understand his need to attend
meetings and accused him of wasting time.  He shared that his wife charged him of using
the meeting as an excuse for his laziness. He was both angry and sad.  I was struck at his
sincerity to his aspiration to stay sober.  He was confused that the closest person in his
life could not understand his need to stay on the program to sustain his abstinence from
his substance of choice.  I made judgments in my mind.  I was expecting that the group
will show a strong reaction towards the person that made his recovery an uphill climb.
There was none.  Most of those who made a response validated his feelings.  They
expressed similar experiences. There was no mention of the wife nor made any comments
condemning the negative attitude towards the recovering persons efforts to stay clean
and sober.  There was mention of Step One, the admission of powerlessness over alcohol
or drugs or other peoples convictions, and that includes wives, families, friends and the
rest of the world. In this forum, the concept of powerlessness is total and clearly defined.

There is no gray area in the rule.  I thought it was a bit too severe. I took a quick look at
the Twelve Steps posted at the wall and it read We admitted we were powerless over
alcohol-that our lives had become unmanageable, and reflects, naturally this man
could not totally be faulted with what happened to him. There must be some reasons why
he took drugs or alcohol that made him an addict.  The rule does not give him any chance
to defend himself. I could not understand how a group that seemed to be so
compassionate to people condemned by society would not extend kindness, instead deal
with him a severe regulation of complete admission to guilt or was it defeat The next
person who shared gives light to my confusions. He said he had gone down the drain
because it took him a long time to admit that he had a problem within himself because he
kept on pointing the blame at others including his substance of addiction for making him
so. He believed that by contemplating on whom or what to blame would address his
addiction problem. By so doing, he supposed that his addiction might come to a
controlled act other than treating it by complete and total abstinence. It gave him false
hopes that somehow his addiction would revert to being a controlled vice rather than it
controlling him. He said that he only realized that there was no other way than give it a
cold turkey withdrawal when everyday in his last months of rock bottom drunken agony,
he would seek death to release him of the pain of being a total wreck. He comes to A.A.
because he had nowhere to go. His family had given up hope on him and surrendered him
to his world of bitter dependence to alcohol that they cannot understand. He was almost
crying when he related his story but there was no hint of bitterness towards his family or
himself.  His words were full of compassion and it generated hope and inspiration within
the circle. I could feel it flowed into me. I reviewed the steps while others continued
sharing.  Step Two speak of an existence of a Higher Power and Step Three ask for a
decision to turn-over self-wills to the care of  God of own understanding. So the
spirituality of this group is in the admission of the existence of a Power they call God and
that God depends on the persons concept of what a god is to himself. They must have
different impressions of God in substance dependency 12-Step Treatment Program. The
meeting is coming to end, and someone was asked to read The Promises.  Others
joined in the recitation.  It was almost like a prayer in the form of pledge for a better life
in sobriety.  It is a concept of the Higher Powers blessings conceived by the recovering
addict and alcoholic in the context of hopefulness and serene attitude to lifes term. They
also recited The Lords Prayer which started with the question, Whose Father The
final recitation was chorused Keep coming back, it works, if you work it. It was
beautiful I can feel certain heaviness in most of the members faces lifted.  They left the
place talking light-heartedly and someone asked me if I am new. I told him, I came to
observe.  I can feel he did not mind being observed. He told me to come back anytime I
wanted to.

The Twelve Steps and the Serenity Prayer.
This beautiful prayer is so much a part of the Twelve Steps program of Recovery in its
context. The opening lines speaks of surrender to a new way of life, God grant me the
serenity to accept the things I cannot change courage to change the things I can and
wisdom to know the difference. Living one day at a time this serves as the very
backbone of the recovery program. The basic principle of the program is the admission
of powerlessness to change the fact or truth of  addiction.  A person who has addict genes
in his person has no power to control his drinking or taking drugs. Eventually the
substance will take hold of his life by giving him a very horrible form of physical
withdrawal symptoms as hallucinations, chills and even death. Alcohol and drugs ruin
lives especially at dependency.  It has a tornado effect on persons close to the dependent.

The concept of the program is to address issues that usually give the addict excuse to
forget problems by the using mode altering substances. Twelve Steps is a holistic course
that aims to address the very root of the disease to be able to resolve it in recovery. It did
not aspire to be grand or too scientific that it cannot be grasped by the already confused
victim.  It stands to the belief that the addict cannot be faulted by his physical addict
composition nonetheless he is responsible for the management of those defective genes
in his body to be able to live a happy life.  Many believe that the program is exclusively
for alcohol dependents only, we can read in Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions that it is
not so. It wrotethe Twelve Steps can mean more than sobriety for problem drinkers.

They see in them a way to happy and effective living for many, alcoholics or not
(p.16).  Dr. Harry M. Tiebot Psychiatrist to Bill W., who co-formulated with Dr. Bob this
beautiful program of recovery, was the first psychiatrist to see A.,A. a significant
approach to the treatment of alcoholics. Tiebot is Bill Ws psychiatrist that treated him of
depression.  (Pass it On. P296). Little by little this program gains strength in the alcoholic
community all over the world.  They have found that there is help in this program.  Now
it has found to the non-dependent world as a tool to happy and peaceful life