Alcoholics Anonymous in times of COVID-19 pandemic

To

Members of AA, those seeking information on recovery from alcoholism and the general public at large

Sub: Update on meetings and formats with helplines & resources offered by Alcoholics Anonymous in these difficult times

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Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) offers hope and relief to Alcoholics and their families thru a well established worldwide program of AA. Typically AA conducts group meetings of Alcoholics everyday across multiple locations globally where these meeting take place in schools, hospitals & related institutions. Millions of Alcoholics have thus recovered. However due to the Covid19 pandemic at this time & keeping social distancing concerns at the forefront all such meetings and meeting places have closed down. This has led to immense disruption resulting in a rapid shift in methods of disseminating the AA message.

Globally AA is taking steps and putting in place resources that may offer alternate methods of passing the message and bringing and keeping alcoholics in recovery. In India we have started > 200 online meetings est * across states in multiple languages. In Mumbai /Maharashtra there are > 25 meetings   where such persons desirous of stopping/staying stopped may participate. These meetings are absolutely free and anonymous (mostly only voice calls with end to end encryption) and we discourage video formats and video formats are never recorded ensuring anonymity. There have also been high incidence of self-harm, withdrawals due to sudden stop of alcohol intake and such patients need to be referred to medical practitioners, psychiatrists and hospitals and several such government helplines have been setup. Alcoholics Anonymous has constituted our own helplines across Maharashtra where persons, family members of persons desirous to stopping drinking, finding out more about AA and how it works can call in and attend our online meetings or speak one on one with members of AA where we welcome them to join the program of AA and live a wonderful life in recovery like so many millions across the globe. We ourselves have been victims of such a disease as Alcoholism and we know that the method works from our own experiences.

Please find a list of 100+ digital online meetings thru survey conducted by General Service Body of Alcoholics Anonymous India (GSB) on the basis of forms filled by group representatives (IGR’s). For safety we have not published the internet links to these meetings however one may call the helpline associated with the group online meeting and obtain the same and methods of joining in the meeting.

Please also find some additional AA helplines across Maharashtra. Any person desirous of seeking information on AA, any aspect of Alcoholism in any language & or desirous of joining in one of the digital online AA meetings may please call these numbers which are available round the clock. This is a gender neutral fellowship and any women desirous of this information may also call on any of these numbers and will be suitably directed to other Women members/ suitable meeting groups of AA fellowship.

Thanking you