Information obtained on this page acquired from the pamphlet "AA in Treatment Facilities
See Pamphlet for more information not shown on this page  

AREA 31 TREATMENT FACILITIES PROGRAM

Part of the Area 31 Institution Committee and
The Bridging the Gap Program

Helping to "Pass the Message" of AA into treatment programs all through Western Mass

If your interested in sponsoring a meeting in a local detox or treatment program please attend the monthly meeting of the institution committee.
Meeting information below.

The monthly Treatment Facilities meeting of
Area 31 is held as part of the Institutions
Committee on the 1st Wednesday of the month
at 7pm at the Providence Hospital Auditorium
on Rt. 5 in Holyoke.

 

Treatment Facilities Representative

Some groups have a treatment facility rep who work with the local Intergroup office, district or area, and as a liaison to the area treatment facilities committee. They share this vital service work with home group members and encourage them to join in this responsibility.

Members of the TF committee, known in some areas as the “Hospitals and Institutions” representatives, work to further understanding of AA by hospitals and treatment center staffs, and to take the AA message and tools of recovery to alcoholics in treatment.  They also act as temporary contacts when the Alcoholic patients are discharged.

The excerpts below are from the pamphlet AA in Treatment Facilities and can help you in your service work.

AA IN TREATMENT FACILITIES:

As Alcoholics Anonymous states in the 3rd Tradition “The only requirement for membership is a desire to stay sober.”

“Practical experience shows that nothing will so much insure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics. It works when other activities fail.” Alcoholics Anonymous, pg. 89

Since one of the ways AA’s Co-Founders helped maintain their sobriety was by carrying the AA message into hospitals, many other alcoholics have discovered the great value to their own sobriety of working with suffering alcoholics in treatment facilities and correctional facilities. A summary of their collective experience is outlined here.

How does bringing AA to alcoholics in treatment facilities help to strengthen sobriety?

Many happy sober AA members have found that the best cure for a “dry drunk” or a “self pity binge” is working with another still suffering alcoholic. Seeing other alcoholics recover, whenever they do, is almost as great a reward as are own sobriety.

What better place to look for those still suffering alcoholics than a hospital or some other alcoholism treatment place? The idea is older than AA itself.

In 1934, a sober alcoholic named Bill W. kept trying to help drunks in Town Hospital in New York City. None of them seemed interested at that time, But Bill stayed sober.

About 6 months later, Bill W. and another sober alcoholic, Dr. Bob S. visited alcoholics in a hospital in Akron, Ohio. Although at first rebuffed, they kept trying - in order to protect their own sobriety. It worked and Bill and Dr. Bob thus became the co-founders of the “help-one-another” chain reaction now called Alcoholics Anonymous.

All over the world, ever since, hundreds of thousands of AA members have been visiting alcoholics in such places. Twelfth-stepping and sponsoring sick alcoholics - where they are - has long been one of the important and happiest ways of keeping ourselves sober.

Today, unlike the 1930’s and 1940’s, alcoholics can get professional treatment in many different kinds of places. Into practically all of them, AA’s can carry the message of hope and recovery. Both tax-supported and private hospitals often have alcoholism units and detox wards. Walk-in, nonmedical detoxification centers, halfway houses, rehabilitation centers, recovery homes, rest farms, and out-patient clinics treat alcoholics.  Some organizations operate drying-out stations. Residences and missions of that type usually have alcoholics who need help. Private physicians, social workers, psychologists, and psychotherapists see many problem drinkers.

So AA members who want to strengthen their sobriety or who want more AA joy in life can easily find it. It is in the hospital or other treatment facility nearest you, where many suffering alcoholics are.

Many of us in AA are certain there is no such thing as unsuccessful 12th step work. If it keeps us sober, it is a success. If the other alcoholic gets well, that is a fringe benefit. All we have to do is be channels for the AA message. Just keep trying to help another alcoholic does seem to work wonders for us. It succeeds when everything else fails.

Do professional treatment facilities really want AA?

Many treatment facilities have AA meetings. They have generally found AA useful to their patients.

How do AA members work with these treatment facilities?

In many, many different ways. What works in one place may not fit in another. Large veterans’ hospitals with long-term patients can use AA help in some ways. But a small detox station may use entirely different services.

There are many suggestions on how to hadle different circumstances from the GSO office.  If your locale does not have a treatment facilities committee you may want to look into one. There are many pamphlets available to you that can help you with handling and speaking to a newcomer.

What qualifications should an AA member have to carry the message to treatment facilities?

1) Some good sobriety: For exactly how long, nobody can say. Some members handle this service work better than others. It is good to be accompanied by an experiece AA member in this field of service.

2) Personal experience of alcoholism and recovery: This, of course, is the chief, and unique, qualification we have. You do not need to have been hospitalized yourself to 12 step someone in a treatment facility. No more than you need a prison record to carry the message in an correctional institution. What is important is that we share the same pain as they do and the joy in recovery we now feel.

3) A common sense approach: Our fellowship of non-professionals firmly resists getting organized.  As AA’s know, we do not have any AA rules or bosses. On the other hand, professional treatment facilities have to be well organized to do their job and to meet various legal requirments. Thier personnel often have to be professionaly trained if the agency is to be properly licenced. Staff members do not take their duties lightly. Alcoholism is a grave ilness. When we carry AA’s message of hope, experience, and stregnth, we know this is serious buisness.

4) A cheerful humility: We simply put the message in front of the alcoholic in treatment. What the alcoholic does with it is not our business. He or she may ignore it, or use it. The alcoholic needs to be free to choose without our getting vain if the message is used, or angry or discouraged if it ignored.

5) Ability to follow directions: In carring our message into treatment facilities, our personal will is subject to authority in at least two ways: First, the ultimate authority for AA work is, of course, a loving God as He may express Himself in a group conscience. Second, the professional treatment facility is in charge of its patients or clients and is responsible for them. If AA members do not conform to the rules and regulations of the facility, they may not be asked to return. So, carring the message into such places call for patient and self-discipline, keeping in mind that we need not compromise our Traditions.

6) Dependability: Once a commitment is made to any institution or organization, we cannot let our Fellowship down by not living up to our aggrement fully. We go to any lengths to perform faithfully the services promised in the name of AA. We try not to let anything interfere with the keeping our word. What people think of AA depends on us.Since AA’s public relations policy depends on attraction, not promotion, that leaves it up to each of us to reflect the attractiveness of the AA way of life.

7) Broad knowlege of AA: Members that have been to meetings in only one or two AA groups in one community may not have the broad aquaintance with our Fellowship. To be the best possible message-carrier, try to vist other groups. In addition, a thorough knowledge of AA literature and material will be beneficial in carrying the AA message. The deeper and broader understanding of our Fellowship (including all three legacies - Unity - Service - Recovery) the more we have to offer to the newcomer.

8) Ability to stick to our own business: Carrying the message to alcoholics in treatment facilities can challenge our ability to keep focused on AA;s primary purpose, which is “to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety.” We are not in the business of educating nonalcoholics about alcoholism, religion, medicine, or anything else. The AA message is carried by sharing our experience, strentgh, and hope. We have no business criticizing and professional agency or person, or telling them how to treat or not to treat alcoholics. Those are not AA purposes. We have the personal experiences of alcoholism, which we now share, along with what we have learned about recovery. Giving it away, without reward, strengthens our own sobriety.

How do we make contact with treatment facilities?

Exactly how such activity is handled varies from one place to another, so each of us has to find out what the local system is. Generally, one of the following procedures is used.

A. Your local Intergroup office. This is a good place to start inquiring. Many Intergroup or central offices have Treatment Facilities or Institution Committees. They arrange for meetings to be taken into these facilities, arrange for AA’s to visit patients, make sure AA literature is always available, and may arrange sponsorship or temporary contacts for Alcoholics upon release.

These committee members usually are familiar with the treatment facilities in the area. They try to keep lines of communication open and untangled, so problems can be avoided. They try to prevent duplication of efforts and coordinate all AA activity so that AA keeps it commitments.

Each such committee runs its own affairs, within the AA Traditions. AA Guidelines on Treatment Facilities Committees, the Treatment Facilities Kit and Treatment Facilities articles in Box 4-5-9 (available from GSO), offer a sharing of AA experience in these matters.

B. Your Area General Service Committee. In many places, this body has institutions committees which perform the jobs described above. There also may be a local committee (CPC) attached to the Area 31 service committees.

C. Your local AA group. Try asking your local AA groups if they are associated with a Detox or Treatment Facility commitment. They may have a once a month commitment to a local facility and this is a great way to begin your service work in Treatment Facility.

D. You, yourself. In the end, every AA job depends on the individual AA member for its fulfillment. No AA committee, board, office, or group can make any member do anything, or stop doing anything. It is the individual AA member who says:”I am responsible. Whenever anyone, anywhere, reaches out for help, I want the hand of AA always to be there. And for that, I am responsible.” Many of the happiest sober people in AA live by those words.

What types of meetings are held in treatment facilities?

There are two kinds of meetings held in alcoholism treatment facilities seem to be practical, simple ways, of introducing patients to AA while they are still in these institutions. Local conditions determine which type is better for patients in a given treatment facility.

Regular AA Group Meetings: Many AA groups rent space at these facilities and meet on a weekly basis. By having these AA meeting on the premises the facilities have a much better opportunity to allow patients to attend these meetings. Tradition #3 states “The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking”, so this is using the best method of passing the AA message to the sick and suffering alcoholic.

Treatment Facility AA Meetings. These meetings differ from the regular AA group meetings. Often attendance is limited to clients in the facility and AA’s on the treatment facilities committee who may be asked to chair the meeting and arrange for outside AA’s to attend as speakers or discussion leaders.

A Few Plain Suggestion—DOS AND DON’TS:

1 - DO—Abide carefully by all the rules of the facility. AA members are guests.
DON’T—AA’s should not try to claim special exemptions or privileges or try to manipulate the agency into making concessions.

2 - DO—Make sure every AA promise is kept to the letter.
DON’T—Do not make any commitment that cannot be met. Excuses do not speak well for AA, but faithfulness and results do.

3 - DO—Limit yourself to carrying your own honest message of alcoholism recovery.
DON”T—Do not talk about medication, psychiatry, or scientific theories of alcoholism. We are not experts.

4 - DO—Listen at least as much as you talk.
DON”T—Do not argue with anyone, staff or patients about anything. Arguments do not win friends.

5 - DO—Live by the spirits of AA Traditions
DON’T—Do not expect any professional agency to govern itself by the AA Traditions.

6 - DO—Remember you are AA to people in that facility. Act like a sober individual. Your actions will determine if you are welcomed back.
DON’T—Do not give anyone a reason to be unhappy with AA.

7 - DO—Always maintain a cheerful humility about how AA works.
DON’T—Do not brag about AA. Let results speak for us.

8 - DO—Remember that you “are responsible”. Let the patients know about the benefits of sponsorship, as well as the temporary contact program which may be available in your area.
DON’T—Do not just carry the message to the facility and leave it there.
Thousands of times these dos and don’ts have helped to keep the AA relationships with professionals cooperative and cordial. When AA takes responsibility for meetings in a professional facility, it is necessary to keep in frequent friendly contact with the facility’s officials to eliminate problems before they arise.

Working with the sick and suffering in and out of the rooms of AA we can help pass the AA message of recovery to all who need it. It is a good way to keep our own sobriety strong, “It works when other activities fail.”