Getting Started with AA
Clear starting points for newcomers and anyone trying to understand how meetings, sponsorship, groups, and participation work.
Use these pages as orientation, then use the AA Meetings branch to find current local and online meetings.
What Is Alcoholics Anonymous?
A.A. is a fellowship of people who share experience, strength, and hope to solve a common problem and help others recover from alcoholism.
2How AA Works
A.A. combines peer support, regular meetings, the Twelve Steps, sponsorship, and service; participation is voluntary and individual paths vary.
3What Happens at an AA Meeting?
Meetings vary by group and format, but generally provide a structured place for members to share recovery experience and support one another.
4Your First AA Meeting
A practical orientation to arriving, listening, introductions, voluntary participation, anonymity, and what a newcomer may encounter.
5How to Find an AA Meeting
Use current local listings, maps, calendars, and online meeting tools, and confirm time and access details before attending.
6Open and Closed Meetings
Open meetings welcome interested members of the public; closed meetings are for people who have a desire to stop drinking.
7What Is a Home Group?
A home group is the A.A. group where a member takes particular responsibility, builds relationships, and often participates in group service.
8What Is a Sponsor?
A sponsor is an A.A. member who shares personal experience with the program and helps another member work through recovery.
9How Sponsorship Works
Sponsorship is a one-to-one A.A. relationship grounded in shared experience rather than professional authority or control.
10How to Get a Sponsor
Members commonly listen for someone whose recovery they respect, ask directly, and discuss expectations, availability, and fit.
11What Does Working the Steps Mean?
Working the Steps means applying A.A.'s recovery program personally, often with guidance from a sponsor and support from meetings.
12What Is a Meeting Chairperson?
A chairperson facilitates the meeting according to the group's format and conscience without acting as an authority over members.
13What Is a Group Conscience?
A group conscience is the process through which a group seeks an informed collective decision about matters affecting the group.
14What Is an AA Business Meeting?
A business meeting is where a group handles practical matters such as service positions, finances, schedules, and local decisions.
15What Is a Service Position?
A service position is a defined responsibility carried out for the group or wider A.A. service structure.
16What Is a Trusted Servant?
A trusted servant carries delegated responsibility while remaining accountable to the group or service body rather than governing it.
