For years, the Malibu Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meeting has played a stabilizing role in the lives of locals battling addiction. Despite its presence on many college campuses, Pepperdine has never held AA meetings on campus. But as of this year, through the work of a graduate student that’s been involved in the program for several years, the Counseling Center will facilitate AA meetings through their office.
The Pepperdine grad student attended Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, where AA meetings were offered. She said she believes it is important for Pepperdine to also hold meetings.
Alcoholics Anonymous describes itself as a fellowship of men and women who have the desire to stop drinking, and this desire is its only requirement to join. AA is an independent organization that does not identify with any religion, political party or institution.
Robert Scholz, the assistant director of the Counseling Center oversees this new initiative.
“Alcoholics Anonymous is a very independent organization. We’ve been talking about that for years so she is very serious about it. We’re actually just providing them the space to do the meeting here in the office. Kind of a natural fit with our mission,” Scholz explained.
Continued Scholz, “We see it as similar to our counseling services here. People come to our counseling services for a variety of reasons, some of which are alcohol- and drug- related.”
Beyond being a good fit for the Counseling Center because of its mission, Scholz also said that the AA missions will be beneficial to students who already visit the Counseling Center.
“We often times have students that are coming in that have history of involvement with AA and are looking to continue that model of recovery. So this is a nice opportunity for them to attend these meetings here on campus even though they may be attending some of these off campus as well,” Scholz said.
“We believe it’s important to offer a continuum of services and AA is another method of support and help for those struggling with specifically alcohol problems and it’s one that is offered on many university campuses,” Scholz concluded.
Being a small community, Pepperdine students may fear the risk of losing anonymity is heightened. Scholz addressed that issue by saying that “hopefully our setting in and of itself will help with that issue. The time of the meeting is after our hours are over.”
“Often times, once people get in and start to see the support they are getting and the help they are getting that often overrides the fear of people finding out that there is a problem,” Scholz continued.
Scholz recognizes that there are two groups of people that this might appeal to. First, the students that are in recovery and would like to have meetings here on campus. The second group is students that are wondering if they have a problem.
“Coming to AA meetings would be a great way for them to hear other people’s stories about their history with alcohol. And sometimes they begin to make connections to their own stories,” Scholz explained.
The Pepperdine grad student approached a professor and the counseling center about the idea.
“I was lucky enough to have a professor that works in the counseling center and knows intimately the problems that the students here are having. Students are coming to him with these issues. When I decided to approach him about it he was very welcoming about it and he definitely wanted to get on board to try to get this to happen,” she said.
Having experience leading AA meetings, she knew the details needed to make the program work on campus.
“Therapist or different resources at the counseling center could refer students to the meeting as an option that was available to them,” she said.
While developing a space for AA on campus, she always kept in mind AA ideals. “It was important for me to uphold the traditions of AA: not being affiliated with any organization and being completely anonymous. I made sure that both those things were held intact in this process,” she said.
She began getting sober when she was 21 and “looking for other young people who were also sober, people that had problems with alcoholism.”
Attending the AA meetings was something that really impacted her. “That was really important to me, to know that there were other young people who were getting sober,” she said.
“At the time when I started getting sober I did not know that this community of AA existed and that there were fun people that were staying sober and having fun. So it was really important for me to find that and it has changed my life completely,” she said.
“By going to AA I learned about what alcoholism was. Up until then I thought it was a bum with a paper bag and something to eat in there leaving under a bridge. I didn’t know that someone who’s young and smart and talented could also have alcoholism,” she added.
By going to AA she found that alcoholism was composed of physical, psychological, and spiritual components.
Physically, her body was allergic to alcohol meaning once she would start drinking she wouldn’t be able to stop. Psychologically speaking, she found she would obsess about drinking regardless of the negative consequences she knew would happen. Lastly, she found that she lacked complete spirituality.
AA welcomes different understandings of a higher power. That could be from your religious upbringing or not.
“This is one of AA’s advantages is that it doesn’t tell you what you are or what to believe in,” she said.
She also encourages students to get more information about AA.
“Come see what AA is all about, check it out for yourself. There’s literature, there’s pamphlets that say more about what it is. There are self-tests you can give yourself to check whether or not drinking might be a problem,” she said.
Meetings will be held on Tuesday afternoons. It is encouraged to contact the counseling center at extenstion x4143for more information.
