See reports from Alcoholics Anonymous participants – 08/25/2023 – Health

The meeting on Thursday night (24) takes place in a room at the back of the church in the east zone of São Paulo. The walls are painted in blue and white and lined with different messages with a single purpose: to avoid the first sip of alcohol. This is one of dozens of daily meetings held by AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) groups across the country.

The reporter was able to participate on the condition that the anonymity of the participants was preserved —all names in this text are fictitious— and that the meeting was followed from start to finish.

It’s 8:10 pm when everyone sits down after having a coffee made by Antenor, one of the day’s coordinators. The post is alternated with Alessandro, but could be occupied by any participant with more than 90 meetings in the group.

“We are here to share experiences, strength and hopes. We are not linked to any religion or political party. What unites us is the desire to stop drinking and stay sober”, warns Antenor.

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There is no need to pay to attend the meeting. Those wishing to contribute any amount towards printing the leaflets, renting the room and making coffee can do so during the break, around 9 pm. This Thursday (25), the total amount raised was R$ 24.

Afterwards, everyone is invited to stand up for a prayer, which is also repeated at the end of the meeting, and the daily reflection is read, based on the 36 principles of AA.

Then the testimonies begin. No one is obliged to speak and two participants prefer to just listen. The others go, one by one, to the chair positioned at the front of the room and tell their stories:

Ivan

“I’m coming to not drink again. Today I had a peaceful day with my family, who is now my mother. Before, I would wake up early and the first thing I would do was cross the street and go to the bar. morning, afternoon and night I summed up my life to a glass of bar.

With alcohol, you always leave home to lose: lose your dignity, morals, money. My wife couldn’t stand it and we separated. I went to live with my mother and then the family saw the seriousness.

My mother started asking God to change my life and it’s been ten months since I’ve had any contact with alcohol.

I’m happy with life without a hangover, without waking up and having to repair damage from the night before.”

Claudius

“I joined the brotherhood in 1994.

Everything is for the first step: you have to admit that you are an alcoholic.

I came here with the guilt behavior and I knew it was my fault. I arrived here discredited, arrogant. Anyone who came to help me on the street I cursed. Tolerance was something I learned here. I am very grateful to AA. Today, I walk with dignity.

I wasn’t supposed to be sitting here. It was supposed to be in the cemetery. I just didn’t lose my life because God was benevolent to me. He drank three bottles and smoked 20 joints a day.

I want to show newbies that it works. I always tell them: ‘Stay because it works’.”

evandro

“I’m happy because I came to the fellowship thinking I had lost everything.

I drank in the morning, in the afternoon and at night, from Sunday to Sunday. This had consequences in my family life, at work. I didn’t stop at any job. Today, I am aware of my illness.

I arrived [ao AA] in August 2008. Arrive, stay, learn to see, to hear. It was 32 years of drinking, from 17 to 49.

I arrived here with shame, and here comes the importance of anonymity. Here I felt included. I was excluded from everything. Even at family events I pushed people away.

In 2008, my wife threw me out of the house. AA changed my way of thinking. I still have a certain kind of nervousness, but I’m trying to get better. The disease is parked.

I accepted my powerlessness over drinking. I consider myself lucky not to be drinking.”

alessandro

“I’m a recovering alcoholic. I started drinking as a teenager. I started working very early and thought it was independence.

I was a Marine. I spent five years in the Navy and was unable to study to move up in rank because I preferred alcohol.

My children were growing up and I didn’t see it. I say I ended my adolescence at 56, when I got to AA ten years ago. Here I learned that it was a disease.

As I started in adolescence, my education was shaken, my character. I had the famous blackouts and it was awful. One day my sister came to a meeting and she remembered but I didn’t.

Guilt makes us drink more. Here, we are emptying ourselves of this rubble. When I arrived, I was just crying. It took me two months to start talking.

AA was my Mega-Sena. I learned again to feel the pleasure of having a glass of water, of eating bread and butter in the morning.

There were a lot of dreams along the way, like becoming a lawyer, but I regained part of my life.”

predecessor

“I came for the pain. I didn’t have an ounce of desire to stop. I liked to drink, I lost them raising my children — and that I don’t recover anymore.

I came to AA when I was 47. Today, I’m 72 and younger than I was when I arrived. It was a Tuesday. I came on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and the next Tuesday I didn’t feel like drinking anymore.

My first drinking was when I was 16, but alcoholism really came when I was 24, 26. So, when I see new people, I say: ‘Stay, because you don’t have to go through everything I went through’.

Alcoholism is a disease. If you didn’t lose, you’re going to lose your job, your marriage, your family.

I think I won back my children, the family. Did I really get it back? I always have this doubt. I hurt my family a lot…

Today, in the square in front of my house, I see a 14-year-old boy with a glass of drink in his hand. I think about talking, but he will answer: ‘You drank a lot and now you’re going to tell me not to drink?’. Therefore, we need disclosure by third parties: health centers, schools and you in the press.”