¶ … Alcoholics Anonymous meeting: April 17, from 6:30 to 7:30 P.M. In Paso Robles, California.
I previously had contacted the leader of the AA meeting to see if I could get permission to attend a session. He wondered if I was in the media, and I told him this was for a college class; and after he explained that everything is open for discussion in these meetings he made clear that I was not to use any real names in my report. I agreed and here is what happened at that meeting.
As I approached the meeting place -- in the back of a small retail building on a busy street near downtown -- several men and a woman were smoking cigarettes outside the building and greeted me with "hi." There was an outside ash tray jammed full of cigarette butts, but no cigarette butts were on the ground. I was a few minutes early so I chatted with two of the participants, who were drinking black coffee. "There's a big coffee pot inside if you would like a cup," said a man with a tiny frame, shaky hands, and a face that had serious scars and wrinkles. "But there's no smoking inside," he added. "California laws, you know."
Inside there were steel folding chairs set up in a large circle in the middle of the large room. There were five tall windows on each side of the room, but curtains covered them so very little outside light was available. It was April, and the sun didn't set until well after seven o'clock, but the inside lights were adequate. Lights were placed in the ceiling corners, not bright spotlights but softer lights that illuminated the room but didn't blast participants with too much light. The place smelled of coffee and cigarettes. There was a little mini-kitchen with an old-fashioned and huge coffee maker (drip kind); paper cups and sugar and powered creamer were available and I noticed quite a messy counter top as...
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