N420.

Alcoholics’ Anonymous Journal Guide

THIS assignment is submitted to your lecture faculty

Each student will attend an AA meeting: Each student will need to submit the following from the

meeting;

1) Signed verification and date of attendance by the leader of the meeting (see form below)

2) Attach a brochure from the meeting about AA

3) Provide a write up about the meeting (refer to the posted template below).

Attend an open meeting. Be honest about being a nursing student attending to learn more about

community resources.

1. Submit 1.5 to 2 page paper typed in paragraph form.

2. Get the AA leader to sign the attached form indicating the name, location and time of the

meeting you attend.

3. Attach a copy of a brochure that are available at the meeting.

4. Briefly describe your experience at an open AA meeting, including the following points:

This was my first experience attending an AA meeting. I attended this meeting by myself on

07/25/20, Saturday at 3:00pm. Due to COVID and it’s restrictions on in-person gatherings, this meeting

took place on text only format with no audio or video for anonymity. The meeting is funded entirely by
their own contributions and they are not affiliated with any organizations or religious affiliations. As an

online meeting, it was formatted in a way to allow individuals to share their thoughts and feelings one at

a time without interrupting others or speaking while someone else is talking. The chairperson is in

charge of leading the meeting and moderates the meeting so that everyone gets a chance to share and

to maintain a no judgement zone. Each participant encouraged to type “!” in the meeting chat if they

would like a chance to share and “?” if they have a question.

This was definitely an interesting experience to say the least. To maintain anonymity, the

meeting takes place through chat only which allows its members to be comfortable in sharing their

experiences. It was interesting to see how respectful everyone was and well moderated it was,

everyone took turns introducing themselves, what brought them there, which step they were on. If it

was someone’s first time, they were always encouraged to share what brought them there and their

previous experiences.

This Saturday meeting was a meeting setup for beginners only. This meant that the primary

focus was on allowing beginning members to cover steps one, two and three. There were many

members on step one, which meant that they were admitting they were powerless over alcohol and

their lives had become unmanageable due to alcohol. During the meeting, interactions were limited to

sharing of experiences but after the meeting, I was able to chat privately with a member who stated that

it was a nurse that first got him into AA. He is 3 years sober now and volunteers some of his time as a

chairperson to guide other fellow members.

I believe these meetings are very important for people with alcoholism because presence of a

strong support system is the hallmark to battle any type of disorder. I believe there is no better support

system than one based on individuals who went through the very same experiences and are best

equipped to understand and help. When I become a licensed RN, I will strongly encourage my patients
with alcoholism problems to attend AA meetings in addition to having support from their family and

friends. I would even offer to attend these meetings for them because it can be intimidating to enter

these meetings by yourself. My concern with these meetings are with individuals that would enter these

meetings to corrupt and entice people who are working hard towards recovery and distract them. In

addition, these meetings would require good moderation to prevent members from being enticed by

bringing up euphoric feelings from their past experiences with alcohol. To conclude, this experience was

very touching for me. By hearing people’s stories and the effects that alcohol had on their lives was

incredibly sad and reinforced the principle of using nonjudgmental attitude towards them because they

truly have become so powerless against alcohol.

AA MEETING ATTENDANCE VERIFICATION FORM:

Name of Group: AAOnline.org

DATE of attendance: 07/25/19

Group Leader’s Signature: N/A