Even there, one runs into statistical difficulties, because the population of people who try AA (or any other treatment) are likely to be people who have tried to quit without any treatment and have not succeeded.
There are tradeoffs with any approach. Other treatments are likely to cost much more than AA in terms of money, with little evidence of any better success. And any program is going to take time (although one need not necesarily limit oneself to any one approach at a time; one could attend AA while also seeing a therapist, say).
Moreover, the point you make about the person being the one who has failed applies to other approaches as well. For instance, if one tries to stop on one’s own – i.e., manage one’s drinking without AA or any other treatment at all – and that’s not successful, it’s hard to characterize that in any way other than that the person failed. That’s likely to harm one’s self respect in much the same way.
I have never, in all the time I have spent in AA, heard this. I’ve heard many people (myself included) say that AA is the only thing that worked for them, but never that AA is the only possible solution.
I think it’s more the anecdotes used as evidence. To bring up Scientology again: look at the number of highly successful people in the entertainment industry who are Scientologists. Obviously it works, right? Anybody who’s skeptical just has an axe to grind, correct? Those people who say Scientology robbed them were just sore losers because they couldn’t make the program work for them! Why, I could find you just as many people who said Scientology changed their lives for the better!
I’m trying to find mention of what to do if AA isn’t for you on their official website, but I’m drawing a blank. No mention of AA not being suitable for all, and no mention of altenative therapies if AA doesn’t work. Can you help me out here?
How would they know? What criteria could they offer to make such a judgement, that they might offer without any fear they might discourage someone who very much needed their help?
I can’t imagine why you keep bringing up Scientology, save for a deliberate attempt to sneer. IMHO, Scientology was invented from whole cloth for the sole purpose of fleecing the gullible. However, now it has generated a base of true believers, who were not in on the original design, and truly believe the hogwash. This is unfortunate, but not actually relevant.
If you have some proof that AA was designed as a “for profit” enterprise, bring.
So, if you do the program you are cured. If you are not cured you did not do the program.
Neat how that works. In the AA world they apparently achieve near 100% effectiveness to hear them tell it (they nicely included the weasel word “rarely” to not have to defend a literal 100% success rate).
Would you prefer that we reference some other human endeavor which is supported only by anecdotal evidence from people who are immune to reason? Homeopathy? Astrology? Numerology?
I bet if one of those people was on this board posting how great their snakeoil was, because it helped their daddy, you’d be tossing your little digs their way. But because we’re discussing a version of snakeoil that you favor, somehow science is wrong and statistics is just cynicism, and lalalalalalalala can’t hear you.
Of the top of my head, in the forward to the big book (the “text” of AA) it says that “Upon therapy for the alcoholic himself, we surely have no monopoly. Yet it is our great hope that all those who have as yet found no answer may begin to find one in the pages of this book.”
Like I said, that is just off the top of my head, as I am at work and my book is at
home.
As to there being no mention of what to do if AA isn’t for you, just because there is no mention doesn’t mean that that’s the “official” stance. That’s a pretty big leap to go from no mention to of any alternatives to it being AA’s view that there are no alternatives.
For an example, are there other stores to shop at aside from Wal-Mart? Of course there are. Is there any mention of the other stores on Wal-Mart’s website? Of course there isn’t. Why would any website, for any organization, mention other options?
Before AA even existed, there were alcoholics who have stopped drinking. What AA claims is to have a course of action that, when followed, has helped millions of alcoholics that otherwise might not have stopped drinking. Not once, in all of my years of coming to AA and then subsequently drinking again, have I been told that I am a failure because of it. I would certainly never say that to an alcoholic who has started drinking again.
Actually, that’s the first time I brought up Scientology, since it’s the first time I’ve posted on the topic. But the nefarious goals of Scientology aren’t the issue. The point is that the criteria for judging the effectiveness of the organizations are the same, and just because you don’t approve of one and think the other is helpful makes no difference when determining whether they “work”. If we were discussing astrology or homeopathy, would you be arguing as strongly as you are for AA? FTR, I have no bone to pick with AA on a personal level; it’s had zero effect on my life. But you have to use the same standards for evaluating it as you would anything else that claimed to affect behavior.
I’m not an alky and I have no knowledge whatsoever about the effectiveness or otherwise of AA: but I do not see that science had reached any kind of consensus as to whether AA works or not. Not unusually, for addiction issues which are, as of yet, poorly understood.
So far, what I’ve seen are dueling websites and studies, some of which conclude that it works, and some of which conclude that it doesn’t. Each “side” claims the other is biased and producing bad science. Neither side has any particular, obvious reason to be biased, though - yet, obviously from this thread, it is a subject that engages strong passions, both ways.
To me, what distinguishes this matter from homeopathy, etc. is that AA has a mechanism of action which has, to my mind at least, a certain inherent plausibility - namely, “cult-like” social pressure. What makes AA sorta “cult-like” is also what makes me think it at least possible that it could work for some - as we know in other settings, “cults” can get folks to do stuff they normally would not do on their own, like give away all their money or drink cool-aid in Jonestown. Seems at least plausible to me that a “cult-like” organization can get folks to stop drinking, if one can get folks to do those other things.
Well, the most impressive cite in the thread so far is the NIH study–I tend to put more faith in that sort of thing than in screeds by people who take their names from Quentin Tarrantino movies.
That said, and I cannot emphasize this enough, the first thing that ANY problem drinker should do if they want to stop drinking is SEE THEIR DOCTOR. For a real addict, coming off of alcohol–or any other intoxicant–can be serious business. Get medical attention first, then go from there.