A prevalent critique of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is that members must adopt an inflexible illness narrative, taking on an “alcoholic” identity and performing a set of practices to address this condition. Conversely, a small body of research suggests that, rather than comprising the uniform adoption of a rigid narrative, integration into AA is achieved by negotiating individual beliefs, values, and preferences with the AA model. To investigate such processes of negotiation, the current study aimed to explore the politics of belonging in AA. The study involved semi‐structured interviews with 15 AA members recruited from meetings across Sydney, Australia, and data were analyzed thematically. Findings illustrated how participants navigated the politics of inclusion/exclusion within AA. While some aspects of AA were found to be negotiable by participants, a non‐negotiable aspect of AA ideology that emerged was the axiom that “alcoholics” have no control over alcohol and therefore should maintain abstinence. Findings raise questions about how the politics of belonging in AA may shift over time following broader patterns of societal change.

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Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is an NGO designed to support anyone who identifies as alcoholic to stop drinking alcohol. Existing qualitative research in this field has primarily reflected the experiences of those who have conformed to AA ideology and had positive experiences in AA. To address this, the current study aimed to explore the perspectives and experiences of individuals who have left AA with some degree of disappointment. The study involved semi-structured interviews with 11 ex-members of AA from America, Australia, and England, who were recruited from several private social media platforms. The study used an interactionist conception of social career involving conversion and deconversion, and data were analyzed thematically. Findings included that while participants experienced some genuinely positive aspects of AA, they retrospectively believed that they remained in AA because they had been indoctrinated into a particular way of understanding themselves. Moreover, findings highlighted participants’ concerns with the people, ideology and practices within AA that ultimately led to their dissociation from the community. Our findings demonstrate a disparity between the idealistic principles in AA and the actual experiences of participants, and this is discussed in relation to the breadth of possible experiences across varying groups and AA’s unregulated peer-to-peer framework.

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