• Meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous are usually held in groups of about fifteen people, for one hour and fifteen minutes.

    Their frequency depends on where you are.

  • With the lockdown, these meetings were held via video conferencing, with many more slots available and opportunities to connect in all places around the world.

  • Two Azuréens, who have been participating in groups for several years, describe how they experienced these Zoom meetings for a year.

For more than a year, we have not counted the habits modified by the coronavirus.

In these changes, videoconferencing has particularly shaken up everyone's daily life and has become a link that connects us to others.

For Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meetings, the option already existed before the Covid-19 but the health crisis has "literally exploded its use", launches Lucien *, communication manager of the group in Paca.

“There are 600 groups in France,” he continues.

As soon as the announcements of the first confinement were made, a solution had to be quickly found so as not to abandon all these people who needed AA to recover.

After a year of visio, we can say that it has been as much a revolution for some as a simple alternative while waiting for the return in person for others.

"

From New York to New Delhi, meetings all over the world

Emma *, who will soon be celebrating her eight years of abstinence, has found very positive points in the setting up of Zoom meetings.

“At first, I was worried that there would be nothing left.

Even after years, I still go to meetings to remind myself that I am an alcoholic and to share my experiences.

What I found fantastic was having meetings anytime, anywhere.

I spoke with people from Quebec with whom I always correspond as well as with a group six hours by train from my home.

And the morning meetings were very convenient when I knew I was going to have a big day ”.

Lucien adds: “The confinement has made it possible to develop this service with an additional dimension. From New York to New Delhi, people have opened up to different cultures while realizing that the disease is the same in all corners of the world. "

The communications manager, also at the organization's hotline, points to another consequence of the health crisis, "isolation, loneliness and therefore, awareness of excessive alcohol consumption".

Emma says: “Every time I connected, there were new ones.

This is not usually the case.

But after a year, we are now hearing people who got away with video and phone calls alone.

We can see that there has been real strength, real solidarity.

She congratulates the "square" organization despite special conditions.

“Sometimes there were 20 of us, other times 70, but the values ​​of respect and listening remained in the virtual meetings”.

"Technology filters the human dimension"

For Gaëtan *, who first attended a meeting eleven years ago, technology filters the “living and human dimension that AA provides”.

“Some people may have been completely anonymous because they felt more comfortable turning off their cameras.

But for me, what really pays off in the AA method is the face-to-face because you see all the expressions of the person.

We're sending a better message.

It is therefore difficult to create a link through a smartphone.

"

He believes that the zooms did not allow “those who were in a house with their relatives to fully surrender.

They were inevitably less free.

The slots from 7 am to midnight cannot compensate for physical meetings where anonymity remains in the room ”.

The French Riviera is "eager to find these face-to-face meetings, perhaps in June".

A feeling shared by Emma who concludes that "despite all these advantages, the virtual will never replace the real".

* The first names have been changed at their request.

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  • Covid 19

  • Coronavirus

  • Society

  • Alcohol

  • Alcoholism

  • Nice