N394 Mental Health

Here is my Process Recording project that I had completed during my time in N394:

Here is my 12 Step Meeting project that I had completed during my time in N394:

Mental Health

The Twelve Step Meeting Project

Darah Daskalakis

Professor Torres

Adelphi University Mental Health Clinical Rotation

I attended an Alcoholic Anonymous open meeting on February 12, 2021 from 2-3pm through the website InTheRooms.com. I found this website while I was scrolling through pages upon pages of 12 step meetings in order to do this assignment. There were over 100 people in this meeting, however, it was organized in such a way that it was easy to keep up with and focus on each person individually, as a group.

Alcoholics anonymous is defined as “an international fellowship of men and women who have had a drinking problem. It is nonprofessional, self-supporting, multiracial, apolitical, and available almost everywhere. There are no age or education requirements. Membership is open to anyone who wants to do something about his or her drinking problem” (aa.org). Since we are in the middle of a pandemic, finding a virtual meeting was the best option for me in order to fulfil this assignment, and to be honest, I think I liked it more than if I were to attend one in person. This was an open meeting with the heading of “Emotional Hang-Overs”, which was dedicated to those who wish to speak about their alcohol addictions with others in order to help them feel a sense of security and self-worth. According to Boyd, this would be considered a supportive therapy group, which is defined as an interaction that is “usually less intense than psychotherapy groups and focus on helping individuals cope with their illnesses and problems.” (Boyd, M. 2017). In conducting this type of group, the nurse (or leader in this case) focuses on helping members cope with situations that are common for other group members. In this group, many of the participants were struggling with alcoholic addiction (or alcoholism). According to GoodRx.com, alcohol addiction can be defined as “a physical or mental dependence on alcohol [that] can lead to health and social problems, and difficulty maintaining responsibilities. Symptoms of alcohol addiction include drinking alone, becoming violent when drinking, missing work or school, hiding alcohol use, and shaking after periods of not drinking.”

This group consisted of one group leader as well as multiple members. A group leader is responsible for monitoring and shaping the group process, as well as focusing on the group content (Puskar et al., 2012). The leader of the meeting allowed one person at a time to share their thoughts and experiences, having a 5 minute limit to share whatever they would like to, followed by giving words of encouragement to that said speaker and so on. Because this is how the group was being run, according to Boyd, there was indirect leadership being used to facilitate this group. Indirect leadership is defined as: “the leader primarily reflects the group members’ discussion and offers little guidance or information to the group. … [giving] sufficient direction to help the group meet its goals and develop its own group process but enough freedom to allow members to make mistakes and recover from their thinking errors in a supportive, caring, and learning environment” (Boyd, M. 2017).

There were over 100 people in this meeting, which sounds like a lot, but it was very easy to hear those who wished to speak. While one participant spoke, others were able to enter the “waiting room,” which was basically a lineup of who is going to speak next. Anybody could share their experiences with the group, making it very versatile and interesting to sit through because everybody had something different to say. Ranging from praising newfound or celebrating long-term sobriety, to recently realizing their addiction, this group had a lot to share- and I was intrigued. At one point, this did not even feel like an assignment. I was genuinely curious to hear the stories of these people and would be interested in helping facilitate meetings like this to help others one day. From attending this meeting, I learned that addiction affects everybody differently and that reaching out to a 12 step meeting is a good start for support. This was a very welcoming experience, feeling very easy to be comfortable enough to speak up and tell the group a personal story without feeling judged.

People suffering from alcoholism are often misunderstood, and unfortunately, are often judged because of it. One person spoke up about getting pulled over drinking and driving with her newborn daughter in the backseat. Because of this, she explained how she is now looked upon as a bad mother because of her alcoholism. This woman told the group that she started drinking after the passing of her young daughter two years ago, for she became very depressed and did not know how to deal with these emotions. Turning to alcohol, she realized that she had a problem when she told the group that she would often drink to the point that she would “black out” and need to look at her text messages from the day before to realize the events that had occurred while she was blacked out. She reached out to friends on Facebook, family, and now AA meetings to “get better for her kids”. Hearing stories like this one is what motivates me to want to help people in my community, so becoming a nurse in the near future will help me do exactly that.

References:

Boyd, M. A. (2017). Chapter 13, Group Interventions. In Psychiatric Nursing: Contemporary Practice (6th ed., pp. 198–210). essay, Wolters Kluwer.

Puskar, K., Mazza, G., Slivka, C., Westcott, M., Campbell, F., & Giannone McFadden, T. (2012). Understanding content and process: Guidelines for group leaders. Perspectives in Psychiatric Care, 48(4), 225–229.

What Is A.A.? Alcoholics Anonymous: What Is A.A.? https://www.aa.org/pages/en_US/what-is-aa.

What is alcohol addiction? - alcohol addiction. (2011). https://www.goodrx.com/alcohol-addiction.