Talking Oneself Sober: The Discourse of Alcoholics Anonymous By ...

This work examines AA talk and what AA members do when they talk to each other in AA meetings. It explores the way these meetings are constituted in a manner that creates a sense of fellowship through equipping all participants with equal speaking rights. It examines the manner in which individuals whose sense of self has been devastated through the toxic effect of compulsive drinking articulate a new sense of who they are—rescripting their lives through shared storytelling, finding explanations and coherence in the concept of alcoholism, and reliance on a power beyond themselves.

We talk about how people ‘do things with words’, we are not simply talking about looking for a meaning ‘behind’ words or looking at language as some sort of manifestation of preexisting beliefs. Rather, we are attempting to identify the type of activity going on, the form of practice engaged in when one uses words. We are exploring language as verbal practice and behaviour, not as verbal representation. We are talking about what is ‘accomplished’ through AA talk, not so much about what is ‘meant’.

In this sense, it is useful to think of doing things with words as similar to doing things with tools. Indeed, for Wittgenstein (1953), language has the diversity of function of the tools in a toolbox with its hammers, pliers, pots of glue, screwdrivers, screw, and nails, each designed to perform its own specialised job.

We can go further and see language as an extension of our bodies. We greet others with words, hands, and face. Just as we can summon a friend by hand, we can do so with words. Just as we can reject and threaten with our hands, we can do both with words; just as we can craft and image of ourselves and others with our hands, we can do the same with words and stories; just as our bodies can express a stance, so can our words.

Aspects of stance will be discussed in greater detail in chapter 9, including (a) the way one aligns oneself to life’s events, (b) one’s moral alignment, and (c) how one orients one’s conversation to others and positions oneself in relation to what others have said, or indeed to what one has previously said, and (d) and the notion of footing.