I have been in a conversation regarding the efficacy and overall usefulness of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). Unfortunately the info on this seems to be all over the place from opinions they are cult-like and do more harm than good to people who think AA is a life saver. There seems to be inconclusive evidence out there and depending who you read it can swing either way on this.
I do not want to state my position just yet but would rather see this thread evolve of its own accord. From my discussions so far GD seems the place for this.
I think the big thing with AA is you get what you put in, and (perhaps it’s biggest pro), you get what you pay for.
Other than that, I don’t really have too much experience with AA other than it’s useful for some, but not for others and it varies from location to location as to how "good’ it can be.
Not to mention it sounds like the negative properties are likely to be unquantifiable and entirely a matter of opinion. Is there a metric for “Cultlike”?
If this thread takes off it’s going to be a battle of opinions at its core.
With a program that large, with so many people singing its praises, with that many chapters throughout the world-I bet there are dozens, it not hundreds of scientific studies and reams of statistical information to reference.
Right?
I find lots of places on the web making various claims but on the face of them it is difficult to judge how reliable they are or whether they have an axe to grind. I found two publications in journals but I can only read the abstract.
Here’s one:
Here’s the other with no abstract but a title that is suggestive:
I’ve not kept up with the literature since. But I do know that these types of studies are quite tough to do, and even tougher to tease relevant data out of. But it’s a decent attempt to quantify outcomes.
I think it’s really, really tough to come up with an objective study on the topic, given the difficulty generating control groups, proper blinding, dealing with a patient population whose honesty about their success tends to be quite variable and who are often lost to follow-up, etc. etc.
Peele and Marlatt have been longtime critics of the current approach to to alcoholism theory and treatment, and Marlatt has been an advocate of controlled drinking over abstinence for alcoholics, despite it being demonstrated that in the studies he cites, outcomes are worse for those trying to return to controlled drinking.
An interesting summary on this dichotomy in Chemical Dependency treatment may be found here.
They’re pretty close to synonymous. AA essentially invented the 12 steps. So when they assess the effectiveness of 12 step programs, they’re assessing the effectiveness of AA, unless they’re specifically excluding AA by focusing on NA and/or CA in terms of their effects on addicts.
And AA is still by far the largest 12 step organization out there.
At least the ones I’m familar with are: AA, NA, CA, Al-anon.
Each individual group pretty much answers only to its own members, i.e. those who show up to that particular meeting regularly. They’d need to answer to the central office if they were calling themselves AA groups but were violating any of the 12 traditions of AA, but otherwise they’re autonomous.
AA doesn’t claim any authority over any other 12 step groups. They barely claim authority over AA as a whole.
Not sure the question lends itself to a simple answer. It seems to me undeniable that AA has helped many people improve their situation WRT their use/abuse of alcohol. So that would be good, no?
It also seems undeniable that it is not perfectly successful for everyone who tries it, and that other approaches might work better for some folk. But that would only count against AA if it claimed to be infallible or the only possible solution.
That would be true if Bozos who know nothing about addiction couldn’t, by dint of running a court room, force young people to hang around with alcoholics to cure them of their alcoholism.
I can only read the abstract there but sounds like they are saying nothing about AA in particular. Just some treatments are helpful without naming those treatments.
But, completely hypothetically, what if it turned out that, say, 20% of people who went to AA were helped by it and stayed sober, while 80% were not helped and went on drinking, while, of people who did not seek help at AA, 30% got sober on their own (or through other means), while 70% kept drinking. Looking at numbers like that, you’d be hard-pressed to claim that AA is, on the whole, a net positive.
Again, I don’t have any reason to believe that the numbers look like that. I simply don’t have enough information to have much of an opinion. But looking at individual stories and ignoring the statistics does not make for a good recommendation.
