| Chapter 1: | A Meeting Observed |
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This involved talking in order to create a new order of meaning in their lives (Wertsch, 2001) and aligning themselves to the AA programme and each other in a particular way.
The chapters that follow aim to demonstrate that there are very few situations where the constitutive role of language is more apparent than in AA meetings, where language is used almost exclusively to produce, rather than convey, meaning. Later chapters attempt to illustrate those aspects of AA discourse that reflect and constitute the way members align themselves with each other and the manner in which a new coherence is gained through the coproduction of personal stories.
AA as an Organisation
The best place to observe AA in action is at group level and in an AA meeting. This is where members meet regularly, once, twice, even seven times a week in some cases, and where alcoholics come to share and address their common problem. For many members, the regular meeting is all that they see of AA. However, though loosely organised, AA has larger organisational structures that give it some overall unity and coherence. It originated in the United States in 1935 and is defined in its preamble as follows: