Alcoholics Anonymous goes online during Covid-19 pandemic

Alcoholics Anonymous members are coping with the Covid-19 pandemic by taking their meetings online.

The Fellowship of around 40,000 members in Great Britain & Continental European Region have had to adapt to be able to continue their recovery.

The AA Fellowship normally holds 5,000 face to face meetings a week across AA GB but with the Government social distancing policy things have had to change.

The majority of groups have turned to Zoom, Skype and other online platforms to hold their weekly meetings.

Tom Fox, a non-alcoholic trustee elect on the AA GB General Service Board, said: “The Fellowship of AA has been resourceful and two weeks into the lockdown online meetings have become a lifeline for many recovering alcoholics.

“They are able to share their experience, strength and hope with each other and use the 12 Steps and the tools of recovery to help them through very uncertain times.

“Our phone lines and online response service has seen a rise in the amount of calls since the Covid-19 pandemic began and as a Fellowship we are grateful that we are able to help people during this time and either direct them to another member to speak to or to an online meeting where they can receive help.”

Alcoholics Anonymous runs a national telephone helpline as well as an online ‘chat now’ service for the suffering alcoholic to receive help and an email response service.

Since the outbreak calls to the help line have gone up by 22 per cent and calls to the ‘chat now’ service have risen by 31 per cent. The email response service has seen a rise of 32 per cent boosted by a 300 per cent increase in requests for meeting information by members as meetings go online.

For help contact www.alcoholics-anonymous.org.uk or call 0800 9177 650

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