(Re)Working the Program

Gender and Openness in Alcoholics Anonymous

Bibliographic Data

ID2263641
AuthorsRachel Kornfield (0000-0001-8542-6913, corresponding author)
Year2014
Volume42
Issue4
Pages415-439
Publication date2014-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEthos (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0091-2131 • E-ISSN: 1548-1352
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/etho.12062
OpenAlexW2115618507
LanguageEN
Citations received7
References cited17

Given concerns that Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) might disempower already disenfranchised groups by focusing attention on self scrutiny and away from social action, this article explores how a cohort of black women members in Chicago portray the role of individual and social forces in their addictions. Despite challenges including histories of sex work and abuse, these women describe themselves as empowered in their recovery efforts and as more successful in AA than their male peers. Their reported success reflects their innovative application of a women-only meeting. Through this meeting, members develop a practice of "openness" that is in some ways at odds with AA's customary self-focus, especially as it becomes grounds to exchange stories about social precipitants of addiction and to strategize ways to assert themselves in their relationships. Rather than enacting a pregiven version of AA, these women interpret the program in creative ways that allow them to accomplish a broad set of objectives

Addiction · Alcoholics Anonymous · Criminology · Odds · Openness to experience · Political science · Psychiatry · Public relations · Scrutiny · Set (abstract data type) · Sociology · Gender Studies · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Homelessness and Social Issues · Law · Medicine · Psychology · Social Psychology · Social Work Education and Practice · Social Work

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