Alcoholic existence in the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous

Abstract

Based on his anthropological research performed among Hungarian members of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), the author summarizes some characteristics of the existence of alcoholics as meant by AA, as persons relating to themselves and to the world in a specific way. Among these characteristics are 1) the community of fate derived from alcoholic identity, 2) posterior responsibility, 3) structural parallelisms between the drama of the sin–redemption of Protestant Christian believers and the drama of the drinking–surrender of alcoholics, 4) inevitability of human beings’ dependency, and the freedom of choice between the different dependencies, 5) existential sharpness due to nearness of death, 6) the necessity of prompt change and the suspension of the moratorium of change, and 7) paradox dialectic of the material and spiritual world.