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In order to discuss the origins, nature, and purpose of AA sharing, this book is divided into three sections, each offering a different lens to explore the same phenomenon. Part I, ‘Finding a Voice’, serves as an introduction to AA by offering a historic perspective and explores how developing and maintaining a particular form of discourse was central to AA survival and guided its progress, explaining its spread throughout the world. Part II, ‘The Fellowship and Sharing’, looks at modern AA and adds a more ethnographic approach based on immersion in AA and observation of meetings over a number of years in different locations, as well as talking to a great number of members. However, this could only give a general impression of what was happening. Part III, ‘Entering the Dialogical’ makes a detailed examination of the nitty-gritty of AA interaction by taking an ethnomethodological approach (O’Halloran, 2003). Here, the methodologies of conversation and discourse analysis are applied. This involved a detailed examination of tape recordings and transcriptions of stories and sharing at meetings, seeking out their characteristic features and the discursive practices implicit in them.
All of the material used to illustrate and represent AA discourse is naturally occurring and nonsolicited, that is, none of it was produced through research interviews. Once the recorded data were selected, they were transcribed according to the conventions used in conversation analysis devised by Gail Jefferson (as cited in Have, 1999). Transcription conventions are provided in appendix D.
The suspension of conversational turn taking in AA meetings means that some of the details used to capture features of turn taking are unnecessary. The system used here indicates only as much detail as is theoretically desirable and focuses on the alignments of the speakers, both to AA texts, beliefs, and practices, as well as other speakers. Therefore, pauses and breath intakes are indicated only approximately in an attempt to ensure an uncluttered transcript and give verbal meaning and alignments more prominence. It must be borne in mind that the transcripts are not to viewed as the data, but as a ‘representation’ of it (Hutchby & Wooffitt, 1998). The data are the actual interaction; the audio tape recordings are merely a ‘good enough’ reproduction of it (Sacks, 1984).