Final answer:
Alcoholics Anonymous helps people struggling with alcoholism by providing support through meetings, fostering solidarity, and encouraging a twelve-step program. The approach treats alcoholism as a disease requiring both social and medical intervention, moving away from the historical view of it as a moral failing.
Step-by-step explanation:
Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is an international fellowship that offers support to individuals struggling with alcoholism. AA operates on the principle that alcoholism is a chronic, progressive disease, rather than a moral failing or strictly a mental health issue. It provides a supportive environment where members can share experiences and foster personal growth and sobriety.
Meetings are a core component of the AA program, serving as forums where alcoholics and often their family members can discuss the impact of alcoholism on their lives. This exchange offers solidarity and understanding from peers, which can be therapeutic. Additionally, AA encourages a twelve-step program where members make a series of personal and ethical commitments, including acknowledging their lack of control over alcohol, making amends for past harms done, and helping other alcoholics achieve sobriety.
By redefining excessive drinking from a question of personal culpability ('badness') to one of medical illness ('sickness'), AA has fostered a more compassionate approach to addressing alcoholism. This perspective aligns with historical shifts in how society views alcohol-related issues, as emphasized by the temperance movement and the eventual acknowledgment of alcoholism as a health problem that requires both medical and social support.