I don’t follow what you mean
I would say that this is true. The group kind of becomes a crutch in that regard. You kind of get stuck viewing things through the 12 steps, which comes with a lot of self criticism (continuously analyzing yourself and finding your mistakes).
What tangible benefits? You have no proof of that, that’s the point. You can keep telling me that it has benefits, but I won’t believe you if you can’t show me the numbers. The numbers that I have seen suggests that it does not have any substantial benefits.
I used to go to meetings all over the place. It was quite common to do that before gas got so expensive, to travel to other meetings. I went to meetings for 10 years. I probably met 1000 people during that time that got a great amount of benefit out of the program. Now, of course, you can choose not to believe me when I say I met 1000 people who benefited from the meetings. There really is nothing I can say to convince you if you won’t take my word for the literal truth.
Robert163, the goalpost here is not ‘some benefit’. For people who cannot control their drinking problems more than some benefit is needed. When we’re talking about drunk drivers and people who commit assaults when they are drunk AA meetings that are likely to fail should not be considered a solution. I don’t have any problem with anybody going to AA meetings, but I have a problem considering that to be a solution to destructive alcohol problems, and worse yet the only solution, which is what AA claims.
How do you know those 1000 (supposedly) anonymous people benefited from those meetings? What followups have you done on their lives? At best, the only thing we can take as literal truth is that you may have met a 1000 people over a period of 10 years that stood up at a meeting and claimed that AA was helping them.
You’re right. You’re 100% correct. I can’t disagree with that at all.
The problem was I made a side comment from what the thread was about. It wasn’t my intention to hijack the thread, I just wanted to point something out that had not been mentioned. Something that was overlooked. And then I guess I wanted to defend my point because I thought people weren’t agreeing with me. I could probably get the thread just as hijacked with complaints I had about the 12 steps. Apart from the religions aspect there is a HUGE group think dynamic.
But you are right. I saw A LOT of people mandated to the meetings that clearly didn’t want to be there and they (of course) got no benefit from the program. Once they got their 20 meetings signed off for the courts, they went right out to drinking again. Your analysis of it letting people slip through the cracks is entirely accurate and justified.
No, over a 10 year period I probably met 2000 or more people. That seems like a lot but at 4 meetings a week, with between 10 and 20 people per meeting, that is a lot of people. Remember that I said that about half the people in the meeting were “working the program”, with 25% being “permanent” members and 25% being people who came regularly in and out but kept coming back and trying again. So… maybe that means I should cut that 1000 to 500. Given that most of the people who kept coming back again and again, most of them eventually got with the program permanently, after enough attempts. So maybe the number should be 750.
Of course we do not have good data even on how that Finnish naltrexone program would work for people who are only showing up because they are mandated to attend.
Success btw being defined in their studiesas not relapsing to heavy drinking. Which may be a significantly better metric than abstinence. If a method allows a problem drinker to maintain his/her social networks (which may be centered around meeting at a pub) while reducing alcohol consumption into the moderate range without binging, it may have a better chance of long term success and of better long term health outcomes (social connections and moderate consumption both being associated with good long term outcomes). It seems to me that the AA support structure is partly needed precisely because the model removes extant social systems (which may involve exposure to alcohol).
Despite all your best effort to keep meticulous notes on how many times you saw the same people and how many drinks they reported drinking each time (preferably none), and the total number of people that you saw one time and never again, I’m going to go with the results of the scientifically organized and undertaken attempts to do the same.
Basically, you’re not going to convince anyone that your memory is more reliable than hard numbers.
Except they aren’t asking or demanding anything. They aren’t asking for money, the deed to your house, or sex with your spouse. There is the door; you can come when you want and leave when you want. If you like steps 1 through 7, but can’t do step 8, then good luck and God bless.
If these people aren’t sincere, then what are they gaining from all of this?
However, the article linked in the OP does state that there is a type of alcoholism for which moderation is not recommended: the hard core chronic alcoholic. And those type of people are the ONLY ones that AA pretends to have the answer for treatment.
As I said, I disagree with their cooperation with the courts in mandating AA treatment.
There are a lot lot lot more people who only come to 2 or 20 meetings. It very well could be that 90% of the people who go to AA do not stay clean. Thats called a revolving door. I’m talking about long term members.
But, as you say, you’re going to believe what you want, right?
Utterly irrelevant question. Millions of people put their heart and soul into things that are of, at best, personal value and often just from inertia.
The argument that “all these nice people have been doing this, for a long time” doesn’t change the basic problem of AA hogging the treatment spectrum without being intrinsically valuable enough to warrant that dominance.
Where was that said anywhere? Wouldn’t you say that scientifically organized and undertaken attempts at information gathering are usually more reliable than personal remembrances?
So in other words, if you have a scientific study that says X and I say my personal experience is Y, you going to disregard what I have to say?
I will weigh one against the other…and probably find the impartial and scientifically organized and undertaken attempts at information gathering of more value in the long run than the personal remembrances of someone who has a personal stake in the matter, and who has said that he hopes to make life-long friends of those who words he takes at face value. Frankly, you have too personal a stake in the matter for your word alone to be enough to counter the all the careful studies done on the matter.
Yeah, I have to agree that your points are pretty reasonable. But at the same time if there was a study which said 90% of the people who owned firearms didn’t know how to shoot well (I am just making up a crazy example ok) and you told me, no, I love guns and have been shooting them all of my life and in all the gun clubs and hunting trips I went on, let me tell you, people knew how to shoot. I’d probably believe you or at least hear you out, I’d try to figure out how your personal testimony matched up against the statistics. Well, that is if I were in the mood to learn about firearms and people who owned them. If I just wanted to win a debate I probably wouldn’t give any credit to anything you had to say.
Also, I haven’t been to meetings in over a decade so my bias to want to belong and having a personal stake is not exactly valid. Furthermore, the 90% you were quoted was for AA, I went to NA, and from the few meetings I went to in AA (mainly in my first year) I seem to remember them having a lot more people mandated and a lot more new people in the rooms. Their meetings were a lot larger than ours.
But lets just think about this logically for a moment. If your contention is that 90% of the people in a 12 step meeting are not working the program successfully, let me ask you, how is that meeting going to be run?
I have very little doubt that they’re completely sincere.
I think the claim is that 90% of the people who ever show up at an AA meeting aren’t successful. That seems completely constant with the idea that half the people at any particular AA meeting are successful, since I imagine the successful folks stick around a lot longer than the others.
Thats precisely what I was tying to say…