Hello, my name is ____, and I'm an alcoholic: A study of organizational identification and commitment to Alcoholics Anonymous

Abstract

This study's purpose was to investigate the communicative processes involved in organizational identification and commitment in a nonwork setting. It considers how organizational identification, organizational commitment, and social identity processes inform how individuals attach to Alcoholics Anonymous and how this attachment relates to their achievement of sobriety, using qualitative methodology. Five findings emerged. First was strong evidence of messages encouraging identification consistent with traditional perspectives on identification in workplace organizations. Second, personal identity change is necessary to the process of attaining sobriety, and social identification processes at work were associated with drinking problems. Third, messages facilitated individual behavioral change by accepting human limitation. Fourth, participants connected values espoused by the organization with a change in decision premises--changed personal decision-making and life choices--as a result of working the 12 steps. Fifth, participants reported organizational identification and commitment behaviors only after they had attained sobriety by working the 12 Steps.