Okay, let's have that "Does AA work?" thread. (Alcoholics Anonymous)

Great Debates
21

If you ask any of them they will tell you they are not cured. They are still alcoholics; AA just helps them to make it another day without falling back to alcohol.

Every day someone goes to AA and does not drink is a success for the person and AA. This issue cannot be measured in whether the person falls back to alcohol in their lifetime but how many days, months, or years they made good choices with the help of AA.

If I over eat and balloon up to 400lbs by the age of 30, start working out every day, drop 200lbs and get healthy for the next three decades and then balloon up to 400lbs at the age of 60, was my time in the gym a failure? Is the gym a cult that stole my money and gave me nothing?

22

This is pretty standard for most addictions. I know recovered alcoholics who claim they are only one drink away from relapsing and it is a perpetual struggle for them (easier then at the beginning to be sure but one that never goes away). Heck, my father-in-law smoked for 20 years and has not had one in the last 20 years. I asked him how long it took him to stop wanting a cigarette and he said, “I’ll let you know.” Point is not to make smoking equivalent to drinking but that such things can clearly be a lifelong struggle are not unique to drinking.

One of my complaints of AA is that they are really substituting one addiction for another. Reliance on alcohol and then reliance on the group in lieu of the alcohol. That is not necessarily a bad thing…the alcohol can be more ruinous. Nevertheless it is a symbol of a cult that you “need” them for your existence.

Don’t get me started on the whole physical fitness industry. They are a money making machine…nothing more. That is not to say you shouldn’t exercise or even use a gym but make no mistake they are not there out of altruism.

As for a “cult” no they aren’t. They are not monolithic in the way AA is nor do they mandate you find God to be successful in their exercise regimen.

They just want your money.

23

There are no recovered alcoholics in AA.

There are recovering alcoholics in AA.

They are not cured.

They are managing their disease.

24

Is smoking a disease?

Is cocaine addiction a disease?

Is overeating (addiction to food) a disease?

Is watching TV 18 hours a day a disease?

25

Sure, you want me to fetch the broomstick of the wicked witch of the west while I’m getting 'em?

26

For an organization that prides itself on its poverty, $10 million is a lot of money to take in. I know they have expenses and all, and I know they have to pay their bills in order to exist. However, it seems disingenuous to me for them to deny that.

The people may not say anything, but there is plenty of literature and other materials that do the asking, and I’ve been to conventions and other events outside of meetings that turned into beg-a-thons.

No, but you shouldn’t see a doctor who is known to violate confidentiality. I know some people can’t or won’t respect the concept of anonymity. These people do a great deal of damage to the reputations of others. There is also no legal privilege involved in AA meetings. To claim there is based on AA’s longstanding policy on anonymity, or that there is even an expectation of privacy at meetings, is irresponsible. People need to be aware that the word “anonymous” doesn’t always mean what they say it means. And, as Mr Smashy points out, there are legitimate reasons for some people not to participate. A person’s ability to earn a living shouldn’t depend on whether strangers at a meeting can keep their mouths shut.

AA does work. For some people. Who may or may not have gotten sober on their own or through some other means. This is the crux of the debate here.

However, to claim that it is the only solution (as Chapter 5 of the Big Book does) and that people who don’t stay sober are always the ones at fault (again, as Chapter 5 of the Big Book does) is also irresponsible. Some people do not do well in AA, but they can benefit from other forms of treatment. Some people need additional help because their substance abuse problems stem from some other psychological or physical problem; solving that other problem solves the alcohol problem. But to preach that AA is the only answer is nonsense.

27

It’s the addiction that is the disease. The inability to moderate the behavior at issue even in the face of significant negative consequences is arguably what distinguishes the addict from the ordinary eater/drinker/toker/TV-watcher.

I think the word “disease” hangs people up because they associate it with infectious disease.

28

I have only the “anecdote” that among alcoholics I’ve known, success at sobriety was very strongly correlated with AA attendance.

I’ve already mentioned one woman, sober for the last 30 years of her life, who became a very successful life-saving counsellor and, despite having strong will-power, still insisted on attending meetings because she “needed to.”

AA claims to have 2 million members. $5 per member is certainly “small potatoes.”

29

And second-hand anecdotal evidence is always better than scientific studies. That’s why we can be sure that Laetrile works.

:rolleyes:

Regards,
Shodan

30

So if someone has a PHD and asks a bunch of people and they say AA works that is statistically valid but if I know a bunch of people that tell me that AA works it is second-hand anecdotal evidence?

That sure sounds reasonable.

31

Bad science is not an improvement over bad religion.

32

I don’t think you quite have a grasp on how science works.

33

My first post to the SDMB!

anecdotal evidence only…

I am 4 years and 4 months sober (and counting) in Alcoholics Anonymous. I’m going to try to keep this brief.

My first experience with AA was as a teenager sometime in the mid 1980s. My initial impression was that AA is a bunch of bullshit. A bunch of people praying to a “higher power” to solve their alcohol problem? Yeah right! I’ve got much better things to do with my time. Needless to say I didn’t last long that first go around.

Over the years, I would show up at an AA meeting every now and then, usually when I was suffering from the ramifications of a really bad spree. The things that drove me to AA (Wife pissed as hell, threatened termination from my job, etc.) were never strong enough to overcome my strong objection to the AA method of recovery.

My first ultra-serious attempt to stop drinking came in 2000 when my wife left with the kids and made it clear that she would not be back unless I stopped drinking. I started looking at options for alcohol treatment. Much to my displeasure, I could not find anything in the entire Houston area, that did not use the twelve steps of AA as their primary means of recovery. Since I wanted nothing to do with AA, I began looking for my own solution.

I could write volumes on the things that I tried to stop drinking. Some were successful, at least initially. Unfortunately none of them lasted very long. I think the longest stretch of time I was able to go without drinking was about 2 months.

Things took a turn for the worst in 2003 when I was fired for drinking on the job, and my wife gave up hope that I would ever stop drinking and filed for divorce. She also filed a restraining order preventing me from having any contact with the kids.

I tripled my efforts, trying everything I could think of to not drink, or at least not have it cause severe problems when I did. Nothing I tried worked. I became basically a hermit, rarely venturing outside the house. During the 3 years from 2003 to 2006 I dried out many times, always swearing that it would be the last time, and unexplainably start drinking again in a very short amount of time.

This brings me to June of 2006, when, in absolute desperation, I sought out the help of AA once more. I looked at it differently. There were people in AA who were just as hopeless as I was but had managed to do what I could not. They were able to stay sober. This, at the very least, warranted some investigation on my part. I realized that I could not claim that the AA program didn’t work if I had never tried it.

So I stuck around. I got a sponsor and followed his advice, disregarding my thoughts on how ridiculous his advice seemed at the time. My last drink was on June 26, 2006.

So does AA work? I can answer that with a most emphatic YES!! I myself have begun working with newcomers in the AA program, and my observation is that those who unreservedly grasp the AA way of life, without exception, stay sober. Those that don’t may or may not have some success, but most if not all will eventually start drinking again.

Some observations from the group that I attend: We get 1 or two “newcomers” per week. Lets say on average that’s about 75 per year. Of those 75, only 5 to 10 will celebrate a year of freedom from alcohol. Even less will two years. That seems, on the surface, an absurdly low percentage of success.

But is that because AA doesn’t work? Or is it because alcoholism is such an overwhelmingly strong obsession of the mind that those who have never experienced it could not possibly understand?

I have experienced it. I know that alcoholism is a disease that places in the sufferer’s mind the obsession over everything else, including self preservation. Breaking it on the unaided will is absolutely impossible. I say that 5 to 10 out of 75 is an overwhelming success. It is also worth noting that only 5 to 10 out of 75 are desperate enough to be willing to disregard their own ideas of what a solution to their problem would entail.

Sorry this is so long.

34

Is AA 100% successful? I ask because all of the people who come in with anecdotal evidence list off successes, but no failures. Does anyone who has known anyone involved in AA know of anyone who has not been successful?

If your mother and your aunt and your neighbor and your bus driver found fantastic success in AA, what about your cousin and your other neighbor and your accountant? That is, I would actually be shocked if those with anecdotes had not one single anecdote regarding failure.

That’s the point of empirical study. If you don’t have some representation of the whole population of interest, your evidence of success or failure is useless.

I love the idea that science is differentiated from non-science by whether or not the person has a Ph.D.! Wow, all the rigamorale that I go through to conduct research is really unnecessary.

35

Turns out all you really needed was to be a drunk.

ETA: I’m not sure it really matters whether AA works or not. Like placebos, AA may have its own intrinsic value even if it doesn’t “work”, and either way, what do AA attendees lose?

36

You obviously haven’t been paying attention.

Particularly with the previous post.

EDIT. with Pann’s post.

Sure you’ll get millions of positive anecdotes and yet have no way to tally the failures to come up with a scientific numerical value of a success rate.

So what.

There are plenty of medications and treatments for cancer and other diseases that don’t get anywhere near a 100% success rate.

And yes there are bogus cures with positive anecdotes, but the numbers of anecdotes are miniscule and their tenure is brief in comparison to AA.

37

There’s apparently plenty of anecdotal evidence for vaccines causing autism, too.

38

Cite ?

39

I don’t have any research, but on Penn & Teller’s Bullshit, they said that AA’s rates are consistent with virtually every other treatment and means of quitting, including simply stopping without any other support or assistance. They concluded that the chances of quitting alcohol are statistically consistent no matter what you choose, and in the end it’s a “to each his own” thing.

Which struck me as pretty true, from what I’ve seen personally, which of course isn’t statistically significant.

40

I guess it doesn’t matter how manu times this gets answered, but here we go again: What they lose is time wasted in a program that might not be for them, exasperating the problem, and they lose self respect because AA teaches that they are incapable of helping themselves and if it doesn’t work for them, they have failed, not AA.