Sobering thoughts: 12-step programs move meetings online during pandemic

Some sources for this story are recovering alcoholics and drug addicts who participate in 12-step programs that emphasize anonymity for their members. Their identities have been obscured.

J. has been sober for nine years. She lives in Little Rock and attends meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous about five times a week.

"Meetings are vital for me," she says. "It's part of what we do to continue to grow and to stay sober and to be responsible citizens."

Meetings are a little different these days, J. says during a March 31 telephone interview.

Normally, 12-step groups like AA gather in rooms at churches or other spaces where participants share their experiences, seek advice, study the 12 steps and other AA texts and often drink copious amounts of coffee.

Measures to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus, like Gov. Asa Hutchinson's executive order to limit public gatherings to 10 or fewer people, have forced many churches to close and members of 12-step groups to give up their face-to-face gatherings and meet online through applications such as Zoom.

With the anxiety that comes from life during the pandemic — the nonstop news reports of deaths and positive cases, fear of contracting the virus, layoffs and economic uncertainty — attending regular meetings becomes even more crucial to those who depend on them.[CORONAVIRUS: Click here for our complete coverage » arkansasonline.com/coronavirus]

J. now uses Zoom to meet with her regular group as well as other Pulaski County groups.

"It is an adjustment, but we are still seeing each other's faces," she says. "We are still able to talk about our literature, which gives us the information and the steps we need to walk through times like this."

The first step in AA reads: "We admitted we were powerless over alcohol — that our lives had become unmanageable."

For J., life during the pandemic is just another reminder of her powerlessness, not just over alcohol, but over things she can't control, like a rampaging virus.

"We have to learn that we are powerless over just about everything, except for our reactions to things," she says. "We are powerless over a church deciding we can't meet at this time, but we do have options."

. . .

Meetings have been an integral part of AA since 1935, when two hopeless drunks and eventual AA co-founders, Bill W. and Bob S., first met in Akron, Ohio.

From that meeting, the society grew steadily and today has more than 118,000 groups worldwide, according to aa.org. It has also spawned other 12-step-based programs like Narcotics Anonymous, Al-Anon and Gamblers Anonymous.

AA meetings are free and each group is autonomous and self-supporting, according to AA's 12 Traditions. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking, according to Tradition Three. The Fifth Tradition states that each group's only purpose is "to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers."

In Arkansas, hundreds of meetings are listed at arkansascentraloffice.org, the website of AA's Arkansas Central Office. There are co-ed meetings, women-only meetings, meetings for Spanish speakers, closed meetings for members only, open meetings where visitors are welcome and others.

The website also has a guide to online meetings, instructions on how to set up and attend meetings through Zoom and a guide for maintaining anonymity on Zoom, whose meetings are by default recorded to the cloud.

As more meetings have gone online, new challenges have arisen.

A March 31 report at businessinsider.com told of online trolls crashing Zoom meetings of New York AA groups and taunting recovering alcoholics.

On April 5, Zoom added measures like requiring passwords to enter a meeting and requiring the host to manually allow others to join the meeting, according to businessinsider.com.

J. says she has not heard of any similar incidents in Arkansas.

. . .

Bobby is a recovering alcoholic in Jonesboro who has been in the program for 36 years.

"For me, and for a lot of people, it's a connection we don't get anywhere else," he says during a phone interview. "Sometimes in meetings, I hear what I need to hear, and I get encouraged by people when I hear the things that are going on in their lives. I don't feel like I'm alone in this thing. I feel like I have someone there with me, and I see God in these other people."

Bobby's group meets at its own space, a place called The Shed, 2901 W. Washington Ave., that normally hosts two meetings a day.

Regular meetings can have up to 35 attendees, Bobby says, but most members are now meeting online.

"They are having meetings on Zoom, but I haven't tried that yet," he says. "A friend of mine has tried it, but he says it's not the same thing."

Besides, he says, the Wi-Fi at his house isn't that great, which can be a problem when trying to participate in virtual meetings.

Bobby prefers face-to-face interaction and still meets with a small group of 10 or fewer, he says. Those in attendance take precautions like keeping at least 6 feet apart, wiping down tables in the meeting space and not serving coffee, which puts a stop to gatherings around coffee pot, he says.

They also don't hold hands while reciting the Lord's Prayer at the end of each session as they normally would, and some meetings have been moved outside, he adds.

"As long as I've been sober, I've never stayed away from meetings," Bobby says. "I don't know where the point is where I would start drinking again. There is a point out there, and I believe that is true for everybody [in AA]. Fundamentally, meetings are not just to make us feel better, they are to make sure we stay sober."

. . .

Wolfe Street Center is a 12,000-square-foot building at 10th and Louisiana streets in Little Rock that is usually open 16 hours a day, 365 days a year and home to 250 recovery meetings each month.

Meetings at the nonprofit recovery resource center, which is run by Wolfe Street Foundation, have been canceled.

Still, appointments with a peer recovery specialist and purchases from the center's bookstore of recovery-based material can be arranged through its website, wolfestreet.org, as long as gatherings include no more than three people.

Wolfe Street is also posting information about online meetings at its site and Facebook page and hopes to provide space and computers for group leaders to host online meetings, according to Vickie Siebenmorgen, executive director of the Wolfe Street Foundation.

"We have typically seen over 100,000 people come through here in a year coming to recovery meetings," Siebenmorgen says. "We have people following 12-step programs but also a multitude of programs that are not 12-step programs. It's always high traffic here, and there is very little downtime."

Although it was quieter than usual at the center late last month, Siebenmorgen said the staff was busy cleaning the facility, upgrading its kitchen and replacing old, cloth-covered furniture with new furniture that is easier to keep sanitary.

. . .

Marti is a member of Al-Anon, a 12-step program for family and friends of alcoholics and drug addicts. Like AA members, Al-Anon participants meet regularly to share their experiences and participate in fellowship.

Marti's group normally assembles at Second Presbyterian Church on Pleasant Valley Drive in Little Rock, but there have been no in-person gatherings since March 11, she says, which was also the day the state's first covid-19 case was reported.

"It's going pretty well," she says of the Zoom meetings her group is now conducting. "It's a little different, but it's good getting to see my friends and see that everybody is doing well. We find the humor in things, and that's one of the ways I've coped with some of the stress over the virus."

It's common for drug addicts to attend AA meetings, but Narcotics Anonymous is a 12-step program developed in 1953 as an alternative for addicts.

An NA member from Northwest Arkansas had a positive outlook concerning online meetings late last month.

Addicts in areas of the state that might not have regular meetings can go online and meet with other recovering addicts from around the state and world, she says.

"Virtual meetings are a viable option, and this is a way we can do more outreach and fellowship development in those rural areas," she says. "That's something we can take away from this. It's all about finding the blessing in disguise."

. . .

Mike Mueller is vice president of the Ecumenical Buddhist Society of Little Rock and conducts a weekly meeting called Buddhism and the 12 Steps.

"We have an interesting mix of people who are in AA or NA or have a formal 12-step program, but we also have people who are just Buddhists or are interested in how the 12 steps might help them," he says.

That meeting and the other meetings held at the society's building at 1516 W. Third St. have all been moved online, Mueller says.

"The 12-step group was one of the first we did that with," he says. "We meet via Zoom on Sunday afternoons. It's part book discussion, part open sharing, and we do a little bit of meditation ... when we said we were moving online there was a lot of relief because some of our members were worried we were not going to be able to meet anymore."

Beyond 12-step meetings, support groups for those with mental illness have also moved online.

NAMI Arkansas is a nonprofit that operates a network of support groups in Little Rock, Texarkana, Fort Smith, Hot Springs and Springdale and is part of the Arlington, Va.-based National Alliance on Mental Illness.

"We have switched to online support group meetings," says Buster Lackey, NAMI Arkansas executive director and a licensed counselor. GoToMeeting is the software of choice for the group, he says.

NAMI Arkansas has about 70-80 members using online services, Lackey says.

"Once [their identity] is verified by the group leaders, the support group starts," he says. "It's the same group that would run face to face."

Support groups are especially crucial now, Lackey says, when people are isolated from others and cut off from their normal routine.

"For someone who doesn't have anxiety or depression, it's maybe not a big deal, but for someone who has that, they start isolating and maybe they stop taking care of their mental health issues," he says. "When you can log on and see others and we can see you, it's not isolating anymore. We can see you and make sure that you are taking care of yourself ... we can still make contact."

. . .

For J., the Little Rock alcoholic, the pandemic and its fallout is another chance to grow in her sobriety.

She talks about reading Alcoholics Anonymous, a principle text for AA members that was first published in 1939.

"It has this word in it that I'd never seen or heard before when I first read it," she says. "It talks about the 'vicissitudes' of life. I thought: 'What in the world is that?"

A vicissitude, she learned, is defined "as an unexpected change of circumstances or fortune, typically one that is unwelcome or unpleasant."

"That is exactly what we are going through right now," J. says. "And this 12-step way of life provides us a way to walk through unexpected times without having to revert back to our previous habits."

Style on 04/19/2020