It is pretty obvious why a judge would order a person to go to AA rather than rehab: rehab costs money.
Here I thought that the demon rim was where the salt went on the margarita.
Actually, Jesus had more than 12 disciples, it’s just that people like the number 12 so they cooked up the 12 big D Disciples afterwards. And people like 12 for the same reason that there are 12 eggs in a carton. It divides no nicely so many ways.
This discussion is reminding me of a book I read recently. (I’ll remember the title later.) One of the characters had been in an AA type group and declared his chair to be his higher power. His chair always supported him.
There are a few issues to consider here. The first is the absolutist approach of AA, which is probably good for genuine alcoholics but may well be bad for mere problem drinkers, as illustrated by the anecdote in the article. What I mean is that if I have difficulty controlling my drinking but am not actually an alcoholic, the mantra that I am unable to have one drink without losing control is not at all helpful. Basically, it says that if I give in to a drink or two, I have now given myself license to get wasted. For some people, it may be possible to train moderation into them, rather than putting them on the wagon/binge rollercoaster.
Then there is the disease thing, which has spread. Some years back, my boss interviewed a prospect, and as the interviewee got up from his chair, he said, “Oh, I just got out of rehab for heroin addiction.” At the time, AIUI, that opened a can of worms because he revealed that he had a “disease” that was under the anti-discrimination umbrella, perhaps the ADA. As long as problem drinkers are, rightly or wrongly, classified as alcoholics, they get protections that may or may not be justified. And of your brain is rotted to a rotini from years of heavy drinking, my boss would like to be able to decide where you can work in our shop, or even be able to reject your application with repercussions.
But really, treating substance abuse as a purely personal problem, as AA seems to encourage, gives us the latitude to ignore the wider issues. People do not become problem drinkers randomly, or because booze exists. It is a complex behavior that is partially driven by environmental influences, some of which the individual can manage, but others, IMHO, need to be seriously examined at a social level. Society is not to blame, but it sure could be actively trying to help with or prevent the problem instead of being a spectator.
Unfortunately because it will discourage people from going to AA and it is time I will never get back.
I have a number of very close friends who are alive and have a very good life, or some semblance of a good life, because of AA. It teaches them and gives them a support group in being honest with themselves and others and do deal with the problems in their lives. And it does this without cost. Rehab is expensive. I’ve known less people who have done rehab, but the results from my set are 100 percent failure, except one fellow who also did AA. AA does not always work. But it is without charge and in my sample, effective.
Goddamn enablers!
No question that it works for some people, but we are hearing it offered as a panacea. It does not work for other people, and can have a negative effect on their behavior. It really ought to be placed in the category of secondary treatment, to help those who can be helped by it. Not all problem drinkers are alcoholics, it seems silly to place those ones in a recover program that has “alcoholics” in its name.
This.
AA has helped a lot of people. Should it continue to exist? Yes. Is AA the absolute only way to recovery? No. If you can find something else that works, go for it! Don’t, however, discount AA just because of the religious bent. Check it out, see if it works for you.
In fairness, doesn’t AA only claim to help a true alcoholic? Bill W. and the first few guys were the ones that ended up in hospitals after long binges with alcohol. They talked about how they ruined their careers and personal lives because of booze. One of the saying is that “half measures availed us nothing” so people in the group have already tried moderating but haven’t been able to do it.
I stand to be corrected, but I don’t think AA has ever said that their program helps people like you (the hypothetical you) who simply drink too much versus those who have an irresistible compulsion to drink.
You’re in the right bowling alley, Enright, and it’s got multiple lanes* to choose from.
Addiction is addiction, and beyond the *just become a devout Christian and you’ll be fine *theme of AA programs, there are a lot of other ways to beat addiction. Furthermore (and I’m not making this up), there’s a lot of programs that rely on psychology, sociology, neurology, medicine – things other than woo.
Long ago a fellow student did her qualitative sociology project on observations of AA, its meetings and culture and so on. She noted that a huge percentage of attendees were chain smokers by the time they got halfway through their steps, even if they didn’t smoke before joining AA. She observed that, even beyond tobacco, AA was just substituting one crutch for another – religion instead of alcohol – for people who couldn’t or didn’t want to take individual responsibility and face reality.
I’ve always though a judge ordering someone to go specifically to AA was failing to separate State and Church.
–G!
*Drug addiction, gambling addiction, alcohol addiction, Dope™ Addiction…
Yes, jtgain, you have that right. AA was started by last-gaspers for last-gaspers. People who would probably die of the drink in the very near future–months or weeks. It’s never really figured out how to handle people with lesser problems, and refused them entry at first.
Except for the rehab centers that follow the AA model (and very few people actually to go to), what spending? It’s free, which is why government agencies love it so much. A judge has people he can trust signing off that so-and-so attended this meeting. Most AA’s (their superfluous apostrophe) won’t sign off until after the meeting.
This is where I disagree with you. By suggesting that the solution to addiction is for people to take individual responsibility and face reality, you are being every bit as moralistic as a religious crusader. Addiction is a disease, and alcoholism in particular is a disease with both physical and psychological components. The key to solving the addiction problem is to use scientific research to find solutions that actually work. Just telling people to be responsible is not a cure, and it doesn’t work.
Weeeelll, AA is not entirely solid on the personal responsibility front, using that Higher Power schtick as a crutch. I was told to cool it with my, “Your Higher Power isn’t helping you stay sober, you are doing it yourself. Jesus/Allah/the doorknob isn’t carrying you, you are doing it yourself. Your Higher Power (as I said in other threads, mine was the group) is only helping to guide you. And don’t think that if you fall you can never have enough strength to get up again because you will. You showed it by getting this far by doing it yourself,” speeches. I was told that my philosophy was too complex for people who were wrecked, mentally and physically. Maybe they were right, for a subset of people who walked through the door. Maybe they needed to think Dad was still holding up the bike as they rode down the street. But that’s why I quit going (and am considered a failure by some AA’s, though I don’t drink–are you surprised that a group built from human wreckage might contain a few nuts?), but also why I support it as ONE of the paths one can take.
ETA: Oh, and my other Higher Powers were a couple of beautiful women who adopted me early on and, in my utterly shallow, macho way, I had to impress. They stopped going so I stopped going. It’s mathematical. :rolleyes:
Those are what I was referring to, hence “AA-based”, rather than just AA.
Just to be clear, public money doesn’t support the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation, which are the big AA-based treatment centers. Local AA chapters are supported by those bucks in baskets and donations by happy members.
I disagree. As to your first and third points, AA does not require a belief in “woo” or any particular religion. It specifically talks about how agnostics can work the steps. All one has to do is believe in a power greater than himself. That’s not really hard to do as has been noted, some use the group itself as a higher power. One can be an atheist and also realize that he is not the most powerful thing in the universe.
As for the “substituting one drug for another” argument, I’ve never understood it. Judges around here will not allow heroin addicts to use methadone for treatment under the same rationale. While I agree that long term methadone use isn’t ideal, for the significant subset of the population who will relapse into heroin use without the “crutch” of methadone, I would a million times rather let them keep the crutch than use heroin.
Likewise, if some people in AA become bible thumpers or suck down too much coffee, I would much rather let that portion of the population do that instead of drinking themselves to death or driving drunk on the roads. Likewise someone is better off as a smoker than an alcoholic, although with the indoor clean air regulations, the days of smoke-filled AA meetings are over.
I don’t think I am falling victim to the false dilemma fallacy. Yes, it is better to be free of methadone and tobacco as well as the larger vices, but for a significant subset of people, complete abstinence from everything will simply not happen. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
And I don’t believe that AA has even tried to figure out how to handle people with lesser problems anymore than Jonas Salk in developing the polio vaccine tried to figure out a cure for cancer. It’s just not in their mission and likewise cannot be faulted for it.
The thing I would blame the group for is working with the court system. If some 19 year old kid gets a DUI and the judge orders him to AA meetings, they should refuse to cooperate. The kid is not there of his own free will, may or may not believe he is a drop dead drunk, and is frustrating the purposes of the organization by being there. He fails the first step: he does not believe that he is powerless over alcohol. He is there to get his court paper signed.
The group is for people who have made an absolute shitshow of their lives because of alcohol use and to discuss and share their common experiences and strategies. It is inconsistent with the purpose of the group and destroys the harmony thereof by playing a part in forcing someone to be there.
First of all, the gist of this article and other recent ones is what I’ve been arguing for years, usually uphill against vehement - and just passive/inertial - supporters of AA. It is not scientifically or medically validated and when you suggest any kind of study or validation, its champions are overbearingly proud that it has no structure or organization by which it could be studied - but it WORKS, you know, so eff all this study stuff.
I have no problem with AA existing, and as I have said many times, it works for those it works for. No question.
However, it’s cemented itself into popular, legal and even medical understanding as The Cure, The Way, The Answer… even for those who will hand-wave at “other ways, if you don’t like AA.”
Or… more importantly, the semi-BS above: “Try it, it might work for you.” I know too many people who did try it, for whom it didn’t have a chance at working, and who never tried any of those “other, minor, secondary, probably-don’t-work-as-well” methods. That’s AA’s crime. Not being vaguely religious. Not having its jackleg psych/religion/moralist 12-step program and endless jargon-babble. Those are no different from many other self-help programs.
It’s that AA displaces far more than its useful weight in the dialogue about alcohol use, addiction and treatment, to the point where too many people remain un-helped because the notion is “AA or nothing” - and if AA is a poor fit or doesn’t work, most opt for nothing, and live out their lives as drunks.
There are other, highly effective treatments, including those that are not absolutist about ever sniffing alcohol again and not putting so much personal opprobrium on lapses and collateral behavior. But someone with a problem has to be lucky enough to stumble on a caregiver/advisor who can steer them to a suitable care regimen… which, for some, probably a much, much smaller some than is commonly assumed, might even be AA.
Time for a cultural shift on this, knocking AA out of its largely undeserved position throughout US culture and belief to a much lower tier, and under a medically- and data-validated understanding of alcohol and abuse treatment.
[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]
Not that I have a specific opinion on AA, but the “it failed because you did it wrong” excuse is common to lots of different kinds of woo.
This is quite true. However, AA is not doing this innocently, they must know that the vast majority of the attendees are not dealing with there problem at all. They are a resource to keep drunks out of jail, enabling them to continue problem drinking. They are certainly deserving of the criticism aimed at them.
I have much stronger opinions about AA than most but I don’t think there’s anything productive in criticizing them from this angle. After all, there’s no “organization” to castigate; it’s like trying to bring down astrology or UFOism or hot stone massage.
While I’d probably make a side trip to tap-dance on the fallen giant, it would be for reasons other than thinking it would do any good. (In fact, accusations of such level are more likely to cement the idea of AA-as-The in the public mind; us mean people must be attacking its virtues from some other agenda.)
Nope. The loud message should be thus: AA is a niche solution that works for some people, but there is no reliable data about how well it works overall, since we tend to hear only about its successes (short or long term). It is nonscientific, not data-driven, has an unknown effectiveness rate that is probably much, much lower than most people believe, and needs to be put in place among a spectrum of options in popular, medical and legal understanding of alcohol treatment. It is NOT “the” choice, the “only” choice, or the “best” choice for most people.