The Anatomy of a Meeting

There are several different kinds of meetings you can attend. First off, there's the difference between AA (Alcoholics Anonymous), CA (Cocaine Anonymous) and NA (Narcotics Anonymous). All three take their teachings from the Big Book (Alcoholics Anonymous) and tend to follow the same basic structure. In AA, participants must only have the desire to quit drinking, but the use of any other narcotic is considered an “outside issue”. With CA, the prime directive is altered to say that participants have a desire to stop using cocaine and all other mind or mood altering substances. Obviously, this includes the use of alcohol. For NA, there is no one substance that you must have a desire to stop using, it is all inclusive, you want to stop everything. I've been to all types of meetings, but now mainly go to AA because, quite simply, there are so many more meetings for AA on any given day. The message is the same, the steps are the same, and after going to a good cross section of these meetings, the people and the stories tend to be the same as well.

At first I was rather uncomfortable identifying as an alcoholic. I mean, sure, I used alcohol and, yes, I used it to excess, but I figured my problems really stemmed more from my drug abuse then a few tall cans in Trinity Bellwoods. Upon closer self-examination, however, it was easy to see that, if I was going to drink, my goal was to get drunk. There seemed to be no other purpose to picking up a drink to me. Since I was a poly abuser, a drink was usually just a means of getting me to a drug, but if the alcohol was plentiful and it seemed to be the choice of the people I was with, hey, it was good enough for me. Also, if I set out for an evening of drinking and was low on funds, I would allot a certain amount of money to limit my spending (also an alcoholic approach). Another sure sign of my alcoholism: I'd always spend and drink more than expected. I still try to make it to a CA meeting here and there, but for the most part I've found that AA works just fine.

First, there are “Open” and “Closed” meetings. An Open meeting is, well, open to all. Family members, friends, curious members of the public, homeless people trying to get in out of the cold. These are generally “Speaker meetings”, wherein an AA member who has completed the 12-Steps discusses their story — the evolution of their alcoholism, how they got into the program, how they're doing today as a result of doing the work. Closed meetings are for alcoholics only; for people who want to stop drinking. Closed meetings can be a Speaker meeting, a Discussion meeting, a Step meeting or a combination (generally Speaker-Discussion or Step-Discussion). In a Speaker-Discussion meeting, a person tells a truncated version of their story (20 minutes or so) and then the moderator will lead the group on a topic discussion (ie. Spirituality, Participation and Action, Resentments, etc). Basically anything that might come up in recovery. With raised hands, individuals are then selected by the moderator to speak. And, yes, we begin by saying “My name is _____ and I'm an alcoholic.” And, yes, the group then choruses back “Hi ______.” This is done to remind us that, no matter how much sobriety you might have, you are never not an alcoholic (or addict), you never “graduate”, you are never cured.

Side note: I'm 45 days sober as of today.

In Step meetings, the moderator selects one of the 12 Steps to discuss and only members who have completed that step may “share”. (Sharing is what we call any personal experience being talked about. Speakers share, people who raise their hand in Discussion share, people who can talk about their step work share).

Members are encouraged to find a “home group”. There are hundreds of different groups functioning throughout the city, but getting a home group is essential to committing to a smaller, more intimate community. (My home group is the Primary Purpose Group – PPG – that meets at Yonge and St. Clair). Members of a home group are assigned duties at business meetings and run that group for other AA members. Duties include: greeters, coffee and snacks, secretary, librarian, etc. Different members will be assigned to be moderators, changing meeting by meeting.

Standard flow of a meeting:

Stand outside a church smoking en masse. Five minutes before the meeting, make your way inside, shake hands with the greeters, say hi to familiar faces, take a seat. The moderator brings the meeting to order, calls up pre-selected individuals to read the 12-Steps and the 12-Traditions and there is usually one other reading, different depending on the meeting. Announcements are then made, generally upcoming members “birthdays” (ie. “John A of the Midtown Group will be celebrating 5 years of sobriety on December the 11^th, all are welcome”), or special events being put on through AA. Moderators then qualify themselves as an alcoholic thus permitting them to chair the meeting. Generally a very quick example of their alcoholism, concluded with “... and I believe that qualifies me.” Then the speaker is invited up, or the discussion is made open. At the close, celebrate the seventh tradition, which states that AA will remain forever autonomous, not accepting funds from outside sources. There are no dues or fees to be a member, but they pass around baskets in order to pay for the rental of the space, to purchase coffee and snacks and it is up to the individual to contribute or not. To close, stand, join hands with the people to your left and right, say the Serenity Prayer, continue holding hands and pump them vigorously while saying “keep coming back!”, stick around for “fellowship” (talking with members, drinking coffee) or leave.

Next post: “My Name is David and I'm an Alcoholic”: My Meeting Experiences.