This is a spin off of the Drinking Culture thread.
The Atlantic punished a lengthy article highly critical of AA and their ridiculous influence.
It’s about time! I can’t believe in the 21st century we are still using this nutty pseudoscience 'spiritual but not religious ’ nonsense approach to alcohol abuse and heavy drinking. Billions of dollars are wasted in the rehab industry force feeding this idiocy to people. The article points out that in most states, anyone who wants to can hang out a sign and call themselves an addiction counselor.
I can only hope that the article helps turn the tide against AA and their uselessness. Certainly no one should be mandated to attend, even though courts seem to love it. Physicians also need to be more educated about what type of lunacy is preached at AA. They wouldn’t prescribe a trip to the local First Baptist church to treat a heart attack, would they?
If churches or charities want to run AA meetings, fine. But surely it is time to let the 1930’s prohibition and demon rim era come to an end. Alcohol isn’t cunning, baffling, or powerful, it’s a chemical with a formula.
I saw the article on line somewhere. It’s amazing this has gone on so long, the article indicates the failure rate at AA is worse than I thought. My own observation of people who go to AA meetings is that they find new drinking buddies there. I’m glad that it helps some people but it has a cultish odor about it and it seems to hinder efforts to find real solutions for problem drinkers.
Not really; something about Judas ?
Anyway, I know nothing regarding AA, but from the article:
[QUOTE=AA]
Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. There are such unfortunates. They are not at fault; they seem to have been born that way.
[/QUOTE]
Look’ut the pretty non-sequiturs dancing in the light ! Shiny ! Dazzling ! Bright !
I will give it a shot. AA has 12 steps and 12 questions. The reason is that Jesus had 12 disciples. If Jesus had 13 disciples it would be a 13 step program. Illustrating that it is a religious program.
He’s complaining that the number 12 is overtly religious and tied to Christianity, and implying that’s why AA has 12 steps. Kind of like the rainbow having seven colours; an arbitrary distinction to fit a paradigm.
I’m not sure I understand all the hatred. It’s pretty easy to say how stupid something is; but what do you propose instead? Addicts are addicts; and one thing addicts do is fall off the wagon. Much like cigarette smokers start smoking again, and over eaters continue to over eat.
The field does seem to desperately need some real controlled trials comparing different approaches to get some true evidence-based guidelines in place and to figure out what works best and most cost-effectively and for whom (different approaches may be better for different sub-groups).
Still the demonization of AA’s place in history, which some in that other thread seem wont to do, seems off. AA seems likely to not be the most effective approach currently available but before them there was pretty much nothing widely available to treat those with alcohol use disorders. Historically they moved the societal mindset towards thinking of alcohol dependency as an illness that could be treated rather than as a moral failing. Maybe the specific approach they promote is outclassed by a current varied toolkit of other options and should be relegated to the dustbin, but having it in the 40s and subsequent decades was better than nothing and just waiting until the late 1990s for the Finns to develop a significantly better approach. (What exactly is the success rate of “brief interventions by a medical professional”? I can tell you without looking that it is damn low too.)
Now the big question is as mentioned at the end of that article - will the new healthcare system insist on cost effective evidence based approaches or just keep covering more costly approaches without evidence extant to back their efficacy up?
I spit coffee on my computer damn you!