12 steps amid the coronavirus pandemic: Alcoholics Anonymous and other group therapy meetings swap hug for a namaste or otherwise adapt
- Recovery groups in the US, including Alcoholics Anonymous, are still trying to help those in need amid the coronavirus pandemic
- Public gatherings have been cancelled, but isolation is not ideal for many in recovery
It was time for the coveted sobriety chips, so Grace snapped on a pair of plastic gloves and kept a bit of distance as she doled out medallions to members who had gone 30, 60 and 90 days without a drink.
Normally, she hugs the people gathered in a church on the Westside of Los Angeles, California, but on this day she offered a small namaste instead. This is what an Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meeting looks like during a pandemic.
“AA can’t totally close its doors,” says Grace, a 49-year-old yoga teacher, who asked to be identified by her middle name to respect the group’s anonymity pledge. “We don’t know when someone’s going to crawl in desperation.”
She started coming to the rooms, as she calls the gatherings, two decades ago and now tries to attend two or three meetings a week, a tiny sampling of the more than 350 groups that meet every day in Los Angeles. They restored her life, she said, and she can’t help but think about others like her, who were considering whether they had the courage to attend their first meeting. What if, like Italy, we’re headed toward lockdown?
As the words “Cancel Everything” began to trend on Twitter and people quipped online about how they planned to self-quarantine with three bottles of tequila, some people wondered what would happen to the 12-step meetings they rely on.