How do alcoholics get to AA?
Stages of Affiliation with Alcoholics Anonymous
 How do alcoholics get to AA?1
AA has grown to over 100,000 groups with more than two million members simply on word-of-mouth recommendation. Often the recommendation has come from friends, family, employers, healthcare workers or law courts.
People progress through stages of affiliation with others and with Alcoholics Anonymous in pursuit of solutions to their problems. Two paths are identified; Direct Affiliation and Facilitated Affiliation2.
The stages are not necessarily discrete where a person moves in clear progression from one stage to the next. A person is more likely to move up and down, sometimes jumping a stage in regression or progression. However, AA reports that 51% of current members stayed sober from their first meeting.
Facilitation plays a significant part in the process of AA affiliation as approximately 60%3 of AA members seek help from the helping professions prior to attending AA.
These stages of affiliation generally follow Prochaska and DiClemente Stages of Change model and are;
- Pre-contemplation,
- Contemplation,
- Preparation,
- Non-affiliation,
- Affiliation,
- Misaffiliation,
- Affiliation-mandated,
- Supra-affiliation,
- Altruistic affiliation,
- Ambivalent affiliation,
- Disaffiliation,
- Re-affiliation.
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Filed under: Adjunctive therapy • Alcohol • Alcoholism • FAQ’s • Stages of Change • Theory
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I can tell you personnally, that I had to “drag” my wife to AA. I sat in the first, second and third meetings, and state “Hi I am Joe, I am an alcolholic.”
Yes, I lied. I was desperate. I only comforted my lie with the rationalization that I was helping. I did feel guilt and remorse that I told these nice people who were trying to admit their their powerlessness over alcohol, that these people were telling the truth and here I am telling a lie.
My “quaifier” (a word you will come to know if you go to Al-Anon) told me, that anyone can go to AA if they want to give up drinking – which I have, I did and accepted as a fact to be there as well as my main purpose, that people with an addiction are NOT the stereotype we all know and see on TV as losers. There are some brilliant and highly successful people who are nice and well-meaning who are just addicted.
My spouse is the alcoholic. I just live in the hell of the confines of the home – which for those who are not spouses or family members cannot even fathom what chaos and destruction that occurs there.
I invite you to my site for some of my dealings. It is not always pretty and uplifting, as I am pretty smart, pretty successful, but I am powerless over the emotional roller-coaster of the living with an addict.
My story is I am the spouse of an alcolholic. My story is like everyone elses’…. I am desperate. I am up and down.
My story is here http://alanondiary.blogspot.com/
I hope my story, for the spouses of alcolholics, can be used in some way to provide solice, that you are not alone.
I do recommend Al-Anon. There are a lot of good and decent people who are affect by alcohol or some drug addiction. I do feel for the addict. Peace to all of you. May you find help.
Signed Joe – Spouse of the AA person
http://alanondiary.blogspot.com/