Reading this:
http://www.drugwar.com/yabltaalies.shtm
Charles Bufe suggests that:
AA is ineffective and unproven as a response to alcohol abuse.
There is no peer reviewed research that adequately underpins the 12 step program.
Is this the case?
AA is as effective as the individual alcoholic wants it to be. If you feel you are going to die if you keep on doing what you’re doing and you want to share your experiences with someone, its as good as anything. Most of the people that pass through are trying to find out whose ass to kiss to stay out of jail or get their children/spouse/job/driver’s license back. Some counselor has given them a paper to sign to prove that they have gone to “X” number of meetings. Just the opinion of an old/atheist/cynical drunk but I have seen many more days due to the fellowship of AA.
More days, that is, than my Father saw.
A couple of quick google/Wikipedia checks seems to come out that, it either is ineffective or negatively effective over the span of a single year (didn’t see anything for long-term effectiveness.) But the only alternative being to be sorted into a particular style of program by a psychiatrist who will be able to determine the best program for you. …which sounds a tad fishy to me as well until such time as I had actually read the studies and determined that this approach actually did better.
Personally, I recommend improving your life, make good friends, and practice overall self-control. But I am not a doctor nor have I ever particularly looked into the subject beyond today.
When I tried AA, many people in the program were court ordered to be there and didn’t take it seriously. I chose not to follow though with it because I couldn’t buy the disease premise, nor the higher power premise. I quit drinking (ten years sober this coming March) without AA
But I encountered many, many people - and still know some - who would still be drinking, or dead, or in jail, without the program and fellowship. I don’t have any authorative cites, but I’d estimate millions of people owe their sobriety to AA. (And, my father died as an end result of being an alcoholic, I wish he’d at least tried it.)
I just googled…there’s at least one ongoing study on the effectiveness of AA. I found that on the first page of the Google search, I bet there’s more.
Are there any peer-reviewed studies that have found it to be ineffective?
I recommend Rational Recovery.
http://www.rational.org/
I have been to many AA meetings. I have no problem with alcohol… But I used to work at a detox centre. In AA meetings they just tell crazy stories of them getting drunk and pissing their lives away. How this helps people I know not. These guys keep falling of the wagon. I have not seen AA help people
If you really want to get sober, AA will give you tools you can use to make that happen. If you don’t really want to get sober, you won’t.
twicks, sober 20 years
Fear Itself, sober 8 years, one day at a time.
I was forced into the program in the mid 70’s. No, it wasn’t a DWI, it was politics,
long involved story.
I don’t want to rain on anybody’s parade, so I’ll just say it wasn’t for me. They predicted
I’d be dead in 10 years. I’m still drinking and still kicking, but I never believed I was an
alcoholic to begin with. I’ll admit to getting carried away sometimes when I was younger,
but I’m not one of those who can’t stop once I start. I have 1-3 normal size drinks, 5-6
nights a week, over a period of 2-4 hours.
If it works for you, that’s great. The big problem I see is that once they decide you’re
an alcoholic the stigma sticks w/ you and if you disagree it’s always written off as
denial. Reminds me of the old movie plot where the reporter goes undercover into
the loony bin, and then the editor, the only other person in on it, dies.
Rock and a hard place.
I am not really looking for individual cases where AA and 12 step have seemed to have worked. It is a truism in Mental health that a third get better, a third get worse and a third stay the same for most forms of intervention. I am sure that many people feel that they have benefitted from AA.
What I am looking for is some double blind research showing whether AA and 12 step is effective or ineffective. I have not so far found anything conclusive.
Is there anything, or should the program be seen as merely neutral at best until there is some evidence that it works better than other forms of intervention or no intervention at all.
I approach this from the position of a retired mental health professional who made regular referrals to AA programs, assuming that such positive tetimonials I had heard supported such referrals. Its easy access, voluntariness and peer group support also seemed to accord with my views of effective psychologcal intervention. Now I find that there is a considerable anti-AA movement which suggests that AA may in fact be antthetical to effective recovery from alcohol abuse.
AA has large numbers of proponents because in terms of raw numbers there are many former alcoholics that are AA members, but even AA’s own figures show that 95% of members do not last a year. Several studies have shown that alcoholics (and other substance abusers) in treatment programs do no better or worse than those left to their own devices.
I would suggest looking at the work of Stanton Peele a psychologist who doesn’t believe in the medical model of addiction. His site is full of resources and will at least provide you some perspective about 12 steps.
Years ago I worked at an in-patient facility for addicts and from my experience Peele seems to have a very pragmatic approach. I loaned a copy of his book “The Truth About Addiction and Recovery” to a friend whose husband wanted to quit drinking. He read the book and gained sufficient insight into his behaviour to take his own steps to control his drinking. Not that the book seeks to be a form of treatment.
From my post in this thread: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=360260&page=1
Any chance you could rewrite the descriptions of the three types of people in something closer to plain English?
Not a professional, but I read it as:
patients whose social structures revolved around drinking, = those with drinking friends & families, or who spend a lot of time drinking in a social environment (as opposed to getting drunk at home alone.)
patients who had a high level of alcohol dependence = someone who drinks daily & chronically, rather than just letting loose on weekends,
patients with minimal psychopathology = individuals without concurrent pathology like severe depression, anxiety disorders et cetera.
That looks excellent- thanks.
Interesting paper- I have read the abstract and will order a copy. From the abstract it seems that no treatment was generally better than the others but specifics seems to change that. I am worried that the groups are assessed only on what was initially recommended/chosen and that there was no matching. There seems to be no provision for the effect of other inputs over periods as long as 3 years- ?ecological validity effects.
I am really looking for something with a better design. Thanks anyhow.
Good luck finding it. It’s a real tough kind of study to do. Too many variables that are too challenging to account for easily, frankly. This study has been considered about the best of its kind thus far.
But if you find something more rigourous please let us know.
Thanks for the confirmation.
This is an always enlightening subject when if jumps up, again and again and again.
A person goes to a clinic for a problem. The doctors tell him to take this medicine twice a day for 60 days.
He goes home and never takes the medicine. After a week he runs all over the place yelling about how the medicine is not working. :: sheesh :::
Lies, damn lies and statistics:
95 % of AA people fail in the first year. Doom and Gloom::, where do the member #'s come from? There is no list of members. There are no requirements for membership. All it takes to become a member is to say you are a member. ( great way to start a statistical proof. )
Now we get the ones like mentioned above. The come to get something back or to get some one off their back. They do not follow directions or take the medicine, just get the paper signed and say it did not work. Well, DUH BRT…
Do the other programs include in there statistics the ones who come for one day, leave and never come back? the ones who refuse to do whatever the program is about? I don’t think so…
AA does not recruit from the courts, that is the courts idea. AA does not recruit.
When I went to and fro looking for help and nothing was working until I came to AA, I am glad people did not say to go back to the thing that did not work because that AA did not work and was not worth trying.
Seems as theses threads are all about trying to discredit AA. I wonder why? Why is AA so scary that it must be destroyed ?
Several million people are sober today because they work the AA program. Why do you want them to quit doing it?
AA does not say other ways won’t get you sober. If you can get sober with will power, with religion, sitting on a stump, going to a doctor, going to a sauna, playing Doom™, then do it and AA says “Good job”.
If all the other stuff does not do it, then you are welcome in AA or you can return to AA, we don’t care. We just want to help you get sober and live a good life.
You don’t like AA, fine, no problem. Just leave, no papers to sign, no money to pay, no obligation at all.
Say for just an example, there is some perfect test that proves that AA is fourth in line on effective ways to get sober. And not all people will get sober in the first three. Do you advocate, that with millions sober using AA, it should be shut down anyway because it is 4th, or you don’t like, or fear it for some reason?
I just don’t get it.
AA has a step that makes one admit submission to a “higher power”, is that not religion?
AA might work, in fact it seems to have worked. Is AA for everyone, no. AA proponents even say that. The smudge on AA’s rep seems to have come from overzealous judge’s propencity for mandating AA for OMVI violators. Law, mandating religion, is unconstitutional. Despite what Chris Speilman says, the constitution supports separation of church and state.
Sorry for the diatribe, I just feel very strongly that religious and judicial matters need to be as separated as possible.
If my statements merit relocation of this thread, Mods, please delete my posts.
I do not intend to offend.