Recovery in Gamblers Anonymous

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Ferentzy ◽  
Wayne Skinner ◽  
Paul Antze
Keyword(s):  
Alcoholics Anonymous ◽  
Recovery Process ◽  
Mutual Aid ◽  
Central Theme ◽  
Notable Feature ◽  
Rigorous Approach ◽  
Slow Pace ◽  
12 Steps ◽  
Gamblers Anonymous ◽  
The Individual

This article was written to provide an overview of recovery in Gamblers Anonymous (GA). How GA's approach reflects the distinctive needs of compulsive gamblers is a central theme. GA is a mutual aid organization modeled upon Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), though differing in some ways from that organization. One notable feature of GA is its emphasis on patience in the recovery process, reflected even in its approach to the 12 Steps, which are "worked" at a slow pace for this reason. Another feature that distinguishes GA is a seemingly more rigorous approach to avoiding potential triggers, notably gambling establishments. Whereas AA leaves it up to the individual to decide whether or not it is safe to enter establishments where alcohol is served, GA's official stand on such questions is uncompromising: members should not enter, or even go near, gambling establishments. Reasons for these differences are discussed.

scholarly journals Gamblers Anonymous and the 12 Steps: How an informal society has altered a recovery process in accordance with the special needs of problem gamblers

2009 ◽  
pp. 42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Ferentzy ◽  
Wayne Skinner ◽  
Paul Antze
Keyword(s):  
Special Needs ◽  
Substance Abusers ◽  
Recovery Process ◽  
Problem Gamblers ◽  
12 Steps ◽  
Unique Approach ◽  
Fourth Step ◽  
Gamblers Anonymous ◽  
Primary Focus ◽  
And Gender

This paper discusses how Gamblers Anonymous (GA) members approach the 12 Steps of recovery, originally advanced by Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) as a spiritual solution to alcoholism. GA's approach finds unique expression in its fourth step, which in AA involves a written "moral inventory." In GA, members are expected to make a financial inventory alongside the moral one. Pecuniary matters are important to gamblers given the debt loads many of them carry. Debt, which is technically a Step 4 and Step 9 (making amends) issue, in practice is typically addressed early in the program, with preceding steps addressed later. The spiritual process central to 12 Step programs will normally not proceed in the expected manner when gamblers are substituted for substance abusers. For one, the process is not as linear for gamblers. GA members often work on the ninth step well before addressing those coming before it. The process assumes a pragmatic, and even haphazard, flavor. GA has altered a time-honored process of recovery - by means of grassroots wisdom and practice - to apply to the realities of problem gambling. While the paper's primary focus is GA's unique approach to the 12 Steps, this is addressed in the context of the changing nature of GA as a whole. Shifting spousal and gender roles along with a greater appreciation of the 12 Steps themselves are all endemic to a GA fellowship that seems to be in transition. While these changes have had some effect, many aspects of GA's approach to the 12 Steps remain intact: the focus on debt entails solutions seemingly unique to the special needs of problem gamblers.

scholarly journals Revisiting 12-Step Approaches: An Evidence-Based Perspective

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dorothy Greene
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Practice ◽  
Alcohol Use ◽  
Alcoholics Anonymous ◽  
Alcohol Use Disorders ◽  
Special Populations ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Mutual Aid ◽  
Cultural Considerations ◽  
12 Steps ◽  
History Of

Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is the longest-running mutual aid group for people with alcohol use disorders, and AA turned 85 years old in 2020. Though there has been much criticism regarding AA and other 12-step programs, there has been an equal amount of evidence to support their efficacy. This chapter explores the history of AA and other 12-step approaches, the foundational philosophy of the 12-steps, the key elements that support recovery, cultural considerations for special populations, and a review of the criticisms as well as strengths of 12-step approaches. The chapter concludes with recommendations for the integration of the approach into clinical practice.

Therapeutic recreation and the Twelve Steps

2013 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 17-24
Author(s):  
Colleen A. Cooke, EdD, CTRS
Keyword(s):  
Alcoholics Anonymous ◽  
Recovery Process ◽  
Therapeutic Recreation ◽  
Twelve Step ◽  
Recreational Therapy ◽  
Twelve Steps ◽  
Therapy Services ◽  
The Individual

This article focuses on the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, and specifically on how recreational therapists can aid the recovery process by providing interventions that facilitate the working of the steps. Little has been written about Twelve Step application in recreational therapy practice, thus the meaning and work of each of the steps is explained, along with suggestions for how recreational therapy services can be applied to aid the individual in the work toward recovery from alcoholism.

Alcoholics Anonymous Discourse and Members' Resistance in a Virtual Community: Exploring Tensions between Theory and Practice

2002 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 749-778 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heather A. Kitchin
Keyword(s):  
Alcoholics Anonymous ◽  
Virtual Community ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Mutual Aid ◽  
Recovery Model ◽  
Political Landscape ◽  
Usenet Newsgroup ◽  
Self Help ◽  
The Individual

Alcoholics Anonymous has greatly informed the individual, social, and political landscape of the contemporary self-help or mutual-aid movement. There has emerged, in turn, a vast, though largely uncritical, body of research examining AA and its 12-step recovery model. A close look inside a virtual AA community, however, reveals that not all AA members embrace formal AA discourse. Through an examination of dialogue and discourse on a public Usenet newsgroup, this study demonstrates that in contrast to research that depicts AA program practices as necessarily harmonious, members' experiences of program wisdom are frequently negotiated and reassessed outside larger AA dicta. The data examined show that what becomes constituted as members' practice can be fraught with questions, tensions, and separations from conventional or ideal AA.

The Group Experience in Camping

Not Just Play ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 105-116
Author(s):  
William Schwartz ◽  
Lawrence Shulman
Keyword(s):  
Social Worker ◽  
Group Work ◽  
Group Interaction ◽  
Time Frame ◽  
Mutual Aid ◽  
Interactional Model ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Group Experience

“The Group Experience in Camping: Observations from Schwartz and Shulman” pairs an April 1960 article by social worker William Schwartz with commentary by Lawrence Shulman, who has continued to enhance Schwartz’s Mutual Aid or Interactional model of group work. Schwartz explores some factors inherent in the resident camp setting as a unique group experience: the compressed time frame, the rapid demand for intimacy, being away from home and “insulated” from the outside world. All these aspects produce intense cabin-group interaction. Schwartz discusses several implications related to the camp milieu that impact the individual camper. Shulman introduces the article by providing a snapshot of Schwartz’s perspective and follows the article with an analysis proposing that Schwartz’s 1960 article represents a way-station en route to the model he elaborated in 1961.

Employment Issues Facing People with Traumatic Brain Injury in New Zealand

1996 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-58
Author(s):  
Rachel C. Winthrop
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Brain Injury ◽  
Vocational Rehabilitation ◽  
Work Performance ◽  
Head Injuries ◽  
Recovery Process ◽  
Everyday Functioning ◽  
Rehabilitation Process ◽  
Vocational Rehabilitation Services ◽  
The Individual

An estimated 600 people seek hospital and/or medical assistance for recently acquired brain injury each week in New Zealand. Many of these people return to work only to find themselves unable to function at the same level as achieved prior to injury. The reasons for this are frequently not understood either by the individual with the injury, the individual's colleagues or by the various professionals approached for advice. Common deficits identified impact significantly on an individual's work performance indicating comprehensive vocational rehabilitation services are required. Rehabilitation counsellors have a key role to play in the vocational rehabilitation process of people with head injuries. This requires that rehabilitation counsellors possess a knowledge of brain injury sequelae, their effects on everyday functioning and of the recovery process from the injury.

scholarly journals Sexuality, Authenticity, and Modernity

1995 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leslie Green
Keyword(s):  
Central Theme ◽  
Andre Gide ◽  
States Of Affairs ◽  
Living Well ◽  
The Individual ◽  
André Gide ◽  
Or History

In his Journals for 26 December 1921, André Gide wrote:The borrowed truths are the ones to which one clings most tenaciously, and all the more so since they remain foreign to our intimate self. It takes much more precaution to deliver one's own message, much more boldness and prudence, than to sign up with and add one's voice to an already existing party .... I believed that it is above all to oneself that it is important to remain faithful.This celebration of fidelity to oneself gives voice to a central theme of modern consciousness: the search for authenticity. The idea that there is an ‘intimate self’ whose needs cannot be fulfilled by following ‘borrowed truths’ is a familiar modern notion and one that contrasts sharply with traditional outlooks. In many pre-modern societies value was believed to be less responsive to the individual: gods, natures, or history were the sort of things that inscribed value on states of affairs, and thus on our lives. Living well was not, therefore, a matter of being true to ourselves, but being true to our creators, natures, or traditions. Moral truths were precisely those things that were borrowed; that was what made them true

scholarly journals Perceptions of Spirituality and Spiritual Care of Health Professionals Working in a State Hospital

Religions ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (10) ◽  
pp. 312
Author(s):  
Kerem Toker ◽  
Fadime Çınar
Keyword(s):  
State Hospital ◽  
Spiritual Care ◽  
Health Professionals ◽  
Health Care Professionals ◽  
Recovery Process ◽  
Spiritual Needs ◽  
Care Needs ◽  
Scale Scores ◽  
Specific Care ◽  
The Individual

Background: The determination and fulfillment of the spiritual needs of the individual in times of crisis can be realized by the health care professionals having the knowledge and skills to provide individual-specific care. This research was conducted to determine the perceptions of health professionals about spirituality and spiritual care. Methods: The study of 197 health professionals working in a state hospital was performed. This study is a descriptive study which was conducted between December 2017 and January 2018. Data in the form of an “Introductory Information Form” and “Spirituality and Spiritual Care Grading Scale” was collected. In the analysis of the data, the Mann–Whitney U test, Kruskal–Wallis tests, frequency as percentage, and scale scores as mean and standard deviation were used. Results: It was determined that 45.7% of the health professionals were trained in spiritual care, but that they were unable to meet their patients’ spiritual care needs due to the intensive work environment and personnel insufficiency. The total score averaged by the health professionals on the spirituality and spiritual care grading scales was 52.13 ± 10.13. Conclusions: The findings of the research show that health professionals are inadequate in spiritual care initiatives and that their knowledge levels are not at the desired level. With in-service trainings and efforts to address these deficiencies, spiritual care initiatives can be made part of the recovery process.

scholarly journals Cross-cultural invariances in the architecture of shame

2018 ◽  
Vol 115 (39) ◽  
pp. 9702-9707 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Sznycer ◽  
Dimitris Xygalatas ◽  
Elizabeth Agey ◽  
Sarah Alami ◽  
Xiao-Fen An ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Evolution ◽  
Group Living ◽  
Design Feature ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Mutual Aid ◽  
Remote Communities ◽  
Basic Part ◽  
Report Data ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Adaptive Problem

Human foragers are obligately group-living, and their high dependence on mutual aid is believed to have characterized our species’ social evolution. It was therefore a central adaptive problem for our ancestors to avoid damaging the willingness of other group members to render them assistance. Cognitively, this requires a predictive map of the degree to which others would devalue the individual based on each of various possible acts. With such a map, an individual can avoid socially costly behaviors by anticipating how much audience devaluation a potential action (e.g., stealing) would cause and weigh this against the action’s direct payoff (e.g., acquiring). The shame system manifests all of the functional properties required to solve this adaptive problem, with the aversive intensity of shame encoding the social cost. Previous data from three Western(ized) societies indicated that the shame evoked when the individual anticipates committing various acts closely tracks the magnitude of devaluation expressed by audiences in response to those acts. Here we report data supporting the broader claim that shame is a basic part of human biology. We conducted an experiment among 899 participants in 15 small-scale communities scattered around the world. Despite widely varying languages, cultures, and subsistence modes, shame in each community closely tracked the devaluation of local audiences (mean r = +0.84). The fact that the same pattern is encountered in such mutually remote communities suggests that shame’s match to audience devaluation is a design feature crafted by selection and not a product of cultural contact or convergent cultural evolution.

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