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What happens at an A.A. meeting?

In short:

  • The 1939 text doesn't prescribe a meeting format. It describes the early gatherings in the "western city" of Chapter 11, Akron: informal evenings in members' homes, and one night a week set apart as "a time and place where new people might bring their problems" (p. 160), where a newcomer heard the story of someone "whose experience closely tallied with his own" (p. 160).
  • Today's group pamphlet describes the common kinds of meeting (discussion, speaker, beginners, Step, Tradition or Big Book) and says "No one type or format is the best for an A.A. meeting" (P-16, 2018). Each group decides its own format.
  • Customs differ from place to place. P-43 says the local group "is free to work out its own customs" (P-43).
  • What every description shares is alcoholics talking with alcoholics about their own experience.

What the 1939 text describes

Chapter 11, "A Vision for You," gives the only account of meetings in the first 164 pages (pp. 159–162): - Most evenings, informally. "Scarce an evening passed that someone's home did not shelter a little gathering of men and women, happy in their release, and constantly thinking how they might present their discovery to some newcomer." (p. 159). - One night a week. It became customary to "set apart one night a week for a meeting" (p. 159) for "anyone or everyone interested in a spiritual way of life" (p. 160). Aside from fellowship and sociability, "the prime object was to provide a time and place where new people might bring their problems" (p. 160). - What a newcomer found. A man still dazed from the hospital heard, "in an upper room of this house," the story of a man whose experience matched his own (p. 160). The book names what reached him: "The very practical approach to his problems, the absence of intolerance of any kind, the informality, the genuine democracy, the uncanny understanding which these people had were irresistible." (p. 160). - Size. By 1939 the house could hardly hold its weekly visitors, "sixty or eighty as a rule" (p. 161). - More than meetings. "But life among Alcoholics Anonymous is more than attending gatherings and visiting hospitals." (p. 161). Members cleaned up old scrapes, settled family differences, and lent money and found jobs for each other "when justified" (p. 161). - In the East, there were "informal meetings such as we have described to you" (p. 162).

Elsewhere the program chapters say nothing about how a meeting runs: no readings, no order of business, no way of introducing yourself. The nearest it comes is its description of its own stories, which disclose "what we used to be like, what happened, and what we are like now" (p. 58).

Bill W.'s 1946–47 essays

  • "When A.A. was very young we met in homes." (P-17, "Clubs in A.A.", 1947). People came miles for the meeting and stayed for hours afterward "at coffee, cake, and eager, intimate talk" (same essay). When homes became too small, New York moved to a tailor's workshop, a rented room at Steinway Hall, and then a club.
  • Members dropped money in "the hat" to pay the rent (P-17, "Money", 1946).
  • In 1946 groups ran from near-secret meetings for alcoholics only to public meetings with speakers on the platform (P-17, "Anonymity", 1946). See What's the difference between open and closed meetings? Can family or friends come?

Today (2018)

The A.A. Group (P-16) describes what is common, not what is required: - Kinds of meeting: discussion (a chair picks a topic), speaker (members tell "what they were like, what happened and what they are like now," as the pamphlet puts it, after the Big Book), beginners (often questions and answers, or Steps One to Three), and Step, Tradition or Big Book study; also business, group inventory and service meetings. - Usual procedure: the chair "usually opens the meeting with the A.A. Preamble and a few remarks" (P-16, 2018). Some groups have a moment of silence or the Serenity Prayer, or a reading from the Big Book, often from Chapter 5 or Chapter 3. Many close with a moment of silence and a prayer, or the Responsibility Declaration. A basket may be passed for contributions. - Who decides: meetings, open or closed, are "conducted by A.A. members who determine the format of their meetings" (P-16, 2018). - Before and after: coffee and conversation, and members helping set up and clean up.

The Foreword to the Fourth Edition (2001) adds that members with computers "can participate in meetings online" (p. xxiv).

What this means

There is no single A.A. meeting. The 1939 text shows the purpose (a place where newcomers bring their problems and hear from people who have recovered), and the later pamphlets show that groups have built many formats around it, each group choosing its own. The opening Preamble, readings, prayers and introductions are customs described in later literature, not part of the 1939 program. See Is the A.A. Preamble in the Big Book? Where did it come from? and Do I have to say "I'm an alcoholic"?

Read it yourself

Sources

Source Pages First published
Alcoholics Anonymous, Chapter 5 (opening); Chapter 11 58, 159–162 1939
Alcoholics Anonymous, Foreword to the Fourth Edition xxiv 2001
P-17, "Money"; "Anonymity" — 1946
P-17, "Clubs in A.A." — 1947
P-43, The Twelve Traditions Illustrated, Tradition Four — © 1971; this printing updated 2023
P-16, The A.A. Group 13–16 2018

Big Book page numbers are from the fourth edition (2001).

Recovery Starts is independent and not affiliated with Alcoholics Anonymous. Quotations are brief and cited; the Big Book, P-43 and P-16 are © A.A. World Services, Inc.; the P-17 articles are © AA Grapevine, Inc.

These pages answer questions about A.A. from A.A.'s own published literature, read in full, with every quote checked word for word against the page it cites. Recovery Starts is independent and not affiliated with Alcoholics Anonymous. What we read, and when each source was written.