About AA Meetings
There are two types of A.A. meetings, 'open' meetings and 'closed' meetings.
Anyone can go to an 'open' meeting. The 'closed' meetings are intended for A.A. members.
The only requirement for membership in A.A. is a desire to stop drinking. There are no membership records although most groups keep track of the people who celebrate anniversaries of sobriety with their group. There are no dues or fees for membership. We take a collection at meetings to meet our expenses.
A meeting in the Ottawa area will start with some traditional readings from A.A. literature followed by the focus of the meeting whether it's a speaker meeting or a discussion meeting. The meeting will close with some ceremonies. Not all groups follow the same format. Participants at a discussion meeting will be asked to introduce themselves by first name. A meeting will normally last an hour or an hour and a quarter.
At a speaker meeting, an A.A. member will talk about his experience: what it was like drinking; what happened as a result; how he got sober; and what it's like in sobriety. A discussion meeting will usually break up into smaller groups at which 'discussion' will normally focus on a reading from A.A. literature.
There should be a literature table at the meeting. A.A. publishes close to 50 pamphlets and upwards of 20 books. A selection of these items will be displayed. The pamphlets will be free and the books will be available at the group's cost. Among the pamphlets should be the meeting directory/list published by the Intergroup office. Of course, our meeting list is available here.
In our meeting list the types of meetings are encoded. The code (os) means “open, speaker”; the code (cd) means “closed, discussion”. There are variations of these two basic types to expand on the type of the meeting e.g., (cd, BYOBB) closed discussion, bring your own Big Book.
Many discussion groups will change to an 'open' meeting once a month to celebrate anniversaries of sobriety. Family and friends can attend these meetings e.g., (cd, last os) means “closed, discussion, last meeting of the month open speaker”.
In our meeting list, the wheelchair symbol indicates that the meeting location is handicap accessible.
For deaf people, there are no “signed” meetings in the Ottawa area but the A.A. Literature Catalogue lists DVD's that are closed captioned and there some that are “signed” (American Sign Language, ASL). Links to these features will come soon.
There is also the pamphlet 'A.A. for the Alcoholic with Special Needs'. Also, soon to be available online.
Lastly, there are many 'online' meetings of various kinds and formats. A listing of them can be found on the website of the 'Online Intergroup: Alcoholics Anonymous'.