[Download] "Twelve-Step Recovery and Community Service." by Health and Social Work ~ eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free

eBook details

Title: Twelve-Step Recovery and Community Service.
Author : Health and Social Work
Release Date : January 01, 2003
Genre: Health & Fitness,Books,Health, Mind & Body,
Pages : * pages
Size : 204 KB

Description

Twelve-step fellowships have become a standard resource for clients whose treatment plans calls for long-term support in recovery (L. Kurtz, 2001). Yet, social workers and other professionals show hesitation about these groups because of popular myths about Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). Many of these myths have been challenged by researchers--for example, the concerns that AA is not helpful to women (Beckman, 1993; Kaskutas, 1996), that AA is not appropriate for African Americans (Kaskutas, Weisner, Lee, & Humphreys, 1999; Williams, 1992), and that AA is ineffective for people who are not religious (Bufe, 1991; Mankowski, Humphreys, & Moos, 2001). This article focuses on an uninvestigated myth about 12-step fellowships--that participants in such groups immerse themselves in dosed recovery systems that discourage reintegration with the wider community and form a barrier to personal and political empowerment (Beauchamp, 1980; Bufe, 1991; Morell, 1996; Williams, 1992). This view of 12-step fellowships conflicts with others' perceptions of them as empowering community organizations (Eastland, 1995; Rappaport, 1994). This subject is important to social workers because we want our clients to be empowered by their recovery experience, and we want them to participate in efforts to empower others (Lee, 2001). To investigate these conflicting perceptions, we examined the experiences of 33 individuals involved in 12-step fellowships and in extra-fellowship community activity. We report findings on how the 12-step group may have influenced participants' community involvement. The 12-step fellowships on which we focused were Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), Narcotics Ano nymous (NA), and Gamblers Anonymous (GA).