The Difference Between Open and Closed A.A. Meetings

The purpose of all A.A. group meetings, as the Preamble states, is for A.A. members to “share their experience, strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism.” Toward this end, A.A. groups have both open and closed meetings.

Closed meetings are for A.A. members only, or for those who have a drinking problem and “have a desire to stop drinking.”

Open meetings are available to anyone interested in Alcoholics Anonymous’ program of recovery from alcoholism. Nonalcoholics may attend open meetings as observers.

At both types of meetings, the A.A. chairperson may request that participants confine their discussion to matters pertaining to recovery from alcoholism. Whether open or closed, A.A. group meetings are conducted by A.A. members who determine the format of their meetings.

From the Conference Approved pamphlet P-16 "The AA Group"

Find a Meeting tool help

Desktop or Tablet Quick Start

How to quickly find today’s meeting closest to your current location:

Press Help on the upper right corner for more detailed explanations. Press the Esacpe key or click the top right to close this help.

• At the top of the page in the Starting Address field, enter your current location and either press Enter or click Search
• You should see a list of meetings in the Georgia area that are within 10 mils of your Starting Address
• On the Map, single click on a marker to show summary information about that location.
• Double click on a marker and a new page opens with complete information about the meetings at that location (filtered by any day,start time or meeting type you may have selected earlier).
• For a printable meeting list: Click See Meeting Schedule.
  A new page opens showing detailed information about all locations and meetings in order of distance with the closest to the starting location first. (NOTE: Distance is as the crow flies - not driving distance)

Advanced Search (Optional)

• You can optionally narrow the selection by clicking on Advanced Search link under the Starting Address, or click on the gray tab at the left side of the map to reveal Avanced Filter options
• You can optionally narrow the selection by using the Avanced Filter options on the left side of the screen

Markers

Starting point - distances to meetings are calculated from here

Locations with 3 or fewer meetings that meet the selection criteria

Clusters of meetings - four or more at the same location.

Click or tap on the AREA 16 logo to go to the Area Home page.

Meeting Lists tool help

To start, click on Meeting Lists to go to the start page.

1. Enter a City, County, Zipcode, or District / Zone in on of the boxes, and as you type look at the results that appear below. When you see your desired location, click on it.
2. Meetings are listed by Location, then Group (since a location can have more than 1 group).
3. Each group's meetings are listed by day of week, and their times. Under each are their meeting codes, which you can hover over to see their meaning.

At any time, you can click or tap on the AREA 16 logo to go to the Area Home page.