INIMINATED SUBJECTS AND SIGILOUS PLACES:THE CONSTITUTION OF ANONYMOUS ALCOHOLICS IN THE CITY FORTALEZA

Abstract

This study aims to analyze the historic implementation of the Fellowship Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) in the city of Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil, from the perspective  of its conditions of possibilities as discourse. As a method, historiographic research was carried out by choosing newspapers, books, magazines and the AA literature as primary sources, and authors from the field of History and correlated areas as references. As a result, it was noticed that in Fortaleza the constitution of the first AA groups occurred in the areas with more alcohol circulation and consumption, like the city center. The divulgation of the AA services was intense, considering the restrictions on group anonymity. The AA was presented as an  alternative to the traditional therapeutic procedures and as a moral and social rehabilitation possibility. The conclusion is that the implementation of the AA Fellowship in Fortaleza was possible due to the active engagement of its first members in the press and to its discursivity, which featured psychological, medical, and spiritual precepts, establishing continuous
identification between its anonymous members and the consumers in the city from the account of the individual story and of the collective memory of the Fellowship.