Empowerment in the Self help/Mutual aid groups: the case study of alcoholics anonymous in Italy

Empowerment is a social action process by which people, organizations, and communities gain mastery over their lives in order to change their social and political environment to improve equity and quality of life. In this paper, the authors examine the virtuous circle created by empowerment, self-help/mutual aid and well-being of individuals, groups and communities. This study, carried out in Italy, aims at emphasizing how, within self-help/mutual aid groups, the empowerment process represents a true development process by which individuals who are in trouble gain a better control over their lives and their environment, improving significantly their quality of life with positive effects on the group they belong to and the surrounding community. The authors have based the research on the whole ensemble of self-help/mutual aid groups of the Italian branch of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). This is because the self-help approach is originally stemmed from AA and is significantly or totally inspired by it.