Alcoholics Anonymous currently consists of a 12-step program to help people face their problems, deal with them, and eliminate them.
I attended an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting during the evening. There were about 12 people in attendance. The group was seated in a circle, with each member able to face each other member. The meeting began with a preliminary discussion of issues discussed during the previous meeting. The group leader followed up some of the matters, such as one individual who had trouble overcoming the denial phase of his problem. During this discussion, frequent references were made to "the 12 steps" or "your 12 steps."
The group consisted of a fairly diverse selection, although the age group was fairly young, with few persons being above 35 years old. This correlates with a finding by Sartre...
(2004, p. 1294), that peer pressure plays a significant role in the age of those who succumb to alcohol addiction. Most of the group was male, with 4 being female. All the females were in their 20s. In terms of ethnicity, there were 4 African-American people, 3 Hispanic people, and 5 Caucasian people at the meeting.
I found the experience extremely helpful in several respects: first in terms of what I learned about the nature of alcohol abuse, and secondly about how I could use the information in my own future.
Specifically, I learned that alcohol abuse is not only subject to peer pressure, but also to family drinking habits. According to Dooley et al. (2005, p. 33), males are about three times as likely to report drinking before the age of 13. Even with the possible limitation of non-truthfulness as
