I attended an Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meeting in Normal Heights and a SMART recover meeting in La Mesa. Both groups taught me something about experiences with alcohol and other addictive habits. By comparing my experiences with both groups, I was able to see how much the groups differed, and also a few commonalities.
AA and SMART have different views on what a change in life looks like. Most notably, each group had a different view about future substance use. AA talked exclusively about abstinence from addictive behaviors as the goal for the future. The amount of days a person has been sober is tracked and heavily emphasized. Longer lengths of abstinence seem to be revered. At the SMART recovery meeting, a specific goal was not laid out, and instead attendees were encouraged to individually set goals for themselves. These goals could include either abstinence or moderation. A deviation from a goal was regarded by AA as a ‘relapse’ and by SMART recovery as a ‘slip up’. The SMART recovery facilitator emphasized that slip ups aren’t the end of the world, and that hopefully you can learn something from them. AA did say they expect relapse will happen, but the attitude around them seemed to be that they were very concerning. Moderation and abstinence are very different goals, but they do have some commonality. Both moderation and abstinence involve improving one’s situation. Both groups seem acknowledge that life right now needs to change. In this way, it seemed that either way, participants drew benefits from either group.
Each meeting was structured differently. Both started with explaining some basic principles about the group, but from there, the meetings differed. SMART recovery was semi-structured and didactic. A tool for a healthy life was presented and explained, and then participants discussed how they might incorporate it into their lives. AA focused on story telling. At the meeting I attended, a brief piece was read about all the ways moderation had failed in the past (e.g. only drinking beer, never drinking alone, etc.), and then members freely shared their experiences attempting to control their consumption. The discussion was very loosely structured, and the conversation didn’t specifically stay on track. I noticed that in AA, people didn’t talk to each other or give feedback about what others had said. Instead the meeting seemed to consist of a series of monologues. SMART recovery’s discussion were very different. It reminded me of a Socratic seminar. Participants responded to other people’s statements, and thought critically about the material presented as it related to themselves. While participation wasn’t required, everyone was completely engaged in the conversation. Participants also sat in a circle, versus AA, where participants all sat facing forward, and were more or less spaced out around the room.
The relationships among attendees differed greatly between SMART recovery and AA. AA members seemed to have intense bonds with each other. I got to the AA meeting a little over 10 minutes early and immediately sat in the back. As people trickled in, I observed them greeting each other with hugs, and their conversations exhibited a great deal of compassion for each other. My family growing up attended a Christian church, and the way AA members related to each other bore a strong resemblance to what I saw at church. In both church and AA I saw a conscience effort to include and welcome new members, and try to reach out to them to get them connected with other members. This level of fellowship seemed so powerful. Beyond church and AA, I can’t say that I’ve witnessed it in any other setting. This showed me why AA can be very appealing. From what I’ve seen substance abuse can mean you end up surrounding yourself with “the wrong crowd”, or just mean you end up isolating yourself from others. To go from a deficit in interpersonal relationships to strong, positive connections would seem very motivating to me. Attendees of the SMART meeting seemed friendly with each other, but these relationships didn’t seem to be the focus of the group. While this seemed to be a deficit as compared with AA, overall I can see the value that each group brought to participants lives. It seemed that for either one to be effective, the individual had to be in a mindset of being ready to change, and also agree with values of the group.