Abstract
Personal stories play a central role for communication in AA AA groups. To tell your story is considered both a therapeutic necessity and a moral obligation. By placing important events in meaningful contexts the stories contribute to an understanding of individual experience as well as the creation of a common identity. The article analyses different constructions of personal stories as they are told in AA in Denmark. Focusing on forms of communication and social interaction in the groups, the article illustrates how individual life stories are presented as respectively pedagogical anecdotes, illness stories and mythical tales. Thus, individual and collective experience are merged into the same therapeutic process.
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