Question
1: Would the Fellowship share experience and make recommendations on
how to make AA more visible to the general public, particularly by
increasing awareness and understanding of how the AA programme works?
Some
extracts from the forum discussion:
"[Tradition]
11.—Our relations with the general public should be characterized
by personal anonymity. We think A.A. ought to avoid sensational
advertising. Our names and pictures as A.A. members ought not be
broadcast, filmed, or publicly printed. Our public relations should
be guided by the principle of attraction rather than promotion. There
is never need to praise ourselves. We feel it better to let our
friends recommend us."
and
"•
26% of adults (aged 16-64) have an alcohol use disorder, 38% of men
and 16% of women. This is equivalent to approximately 8.2 million
people in England.
• 21%
of men and 9% of women are binge drinkers.
• 3.6%
of adults are alcohol dependent; 6% of men and 2% of women. This
equates to 1.1 million people in England.
• There
is considerable regional variation in regard to both hazardous and
harmful drinking and alcohol dependence.
• In
2003-4, about 167,000 people were referred to alcohol treatment and
63,000 people received treatment for their alcohol problems. This was
a combination of inpatient services, residential rehabilitation and
community treatments such as home detoxification, day treatment
places and counselling services.
Therefore
let us take the figure of 1.1 million for England - and round it up
to 1.5 million for Great Britain - as a guide for possible candidates
for AA. Firstly I believe the figure of 34,000 for the current
membership is probably an underestimate (although by how much it is
difficult to say) ie. it excludes those who either are
non-responders, do not attend AA meetings any more or who attend
relatively few. I know personally about half a dozen people who fit
into the last two categories but all of whom would recommend AA to
someone who might need it. So on that basis it would be a fairly safe
bet that the figure of 34,000 could be doubled or even tripled.
Moreover the way in which people actually access AA via personal
referral is hardly ever random ie. bumping into a member in the
street, but depends rather on social networks. eg. family, work
situation, clubs, etc If you then factor in the other methods of
referral (since they don't operate in isolation ie. website, media,
various social care agencies ...) then I would suggest that the
majority of potential candidates for AA have heard of us, or know
directly someone who is in the Fellowship or know somebody who does
etc. Therefore the problem in my estimation is not our lack of a
profile but rather what kind of profile is being presented to the
general public. In other words it is a matter of education and more
importantly who precisely is doing the educating!
Now
(and to which allusion has already been made) one of the key sources
of information for most people in the UK (and increasingly so) is the
internet. Here are presented literally thousands of pages about AA,
its recovery programme, together with various study methods etc. Some
of this is explicitly anti-AA and therefore can fairly easily be
dismissed. They have their own agenda, and freedom of speech (or so
I've heard) still exists! Good luck to them! However there is a
considerable amount of misinformation being propagated on the net
which derives from sites that supposedly support AA. Some use the
name Alcoholics Anonymous explicitly on their sites but rather more
do so implicitly. Some actually claim to be websites associated with
AA groups (but not affiliated with AA?). Some sites clearly indicate
a religious bias and some actually advertise completely
unsubstantiated information about AA and its recovery rates (and not
to our advantage I might add!)."
See
here for the
remainder of the discussion. Why not join in? It's free! Sign up and say your piece!
Cheerio
The
Fellas (Friends of Alcoholics Anonymous)
