Talking oneself sober
Subtitle: the discourse of Alcoholics Anonymous
By: Sean O'Halloran.
Publisher: Cambria Press
Published: 2008
Place of publication: Amherst, NY
Language: eng
Number of pages: 279
ISBN-13: 9781604975529
Subjects: Alcoholics Anonymous; Alcoholics -- Rehabilitation; Twelve-step programs; Self-help groups
Description: This book is the first to deal comprehensively with the spoken discourse of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), particularly within AA meetings. These meetings are generally not easily accessible to researchers, but they are AA’s central defining activity and provide the forum through which it operates. To understand what happens in AA meetings is to begin to understand AA.

This study also examines AA written texts, including Alcoholics Anonymous (The Big Book) and the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions. Without a thorough knowledge of these one can only have a limited understanding of AA. 

The discussion draws heavily on authentic recorded material of unsolicited interaction between members in AA meetings. This is used to illustrate that: 
• there is a degree of discursive symmetry in AA meeting which is perhaps unique • it is through sharing that the individual voice of recovery is developed and gains ascendancy, creating a new alignment to the world and others 
• through viewing their compulsive drinking as a ‘disease’ of body, mind and spirit, AA members develop a coherent version of their lives, freeing them from self-blame and the impulse to blame other people, places and things. However, they acknowledge responsible for their sobriety through being in a fit state mentally and spiritually to resist the physical trigger––the first alcoholic drink
• in their accounts of everyday life, AA members learn to accept life on life’s terms as well as work the AA programme. This results in a new spiritual realignment which challenges the alcoholic tendency to set oneself at odds with other people and society at large
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: A meeting observed. Alcoholics Anonymous-'talking the talk'. A meeting curtailed. Some preliminary questions. AA as an organisation; title: Early AA. The alcoholics squad of the Oxford Group. Quiet time. The development of the AA meeting. Hospitalisation and surrender; title: Letting go of the Oxford Group. What can be changed? Anonymity and 'letting go'. Keep it simple. Alcoholism-a disease?; title: The written texts. The Big Book. The Twelve Steps. Drafting and secularising the Twelve Steps. The steps-process and metaphor. The stories. Acceptance is the answer. AA and religious discourse. AA daily reflections.