guizot:
AA isn’t going to “work” on anyone against their will. Instead of asking, “How many people don’t stay sober,” the research needs to ask, “How many people–everywhere–who have stayed sober attribute that to their involvement with AA?” But if you’re taking a sample only from people who have gone to AA, or only people who have relapsed, you can’t do that, so the conclusion you draw from that research is disingenuous.
George Vaillant “an advocate of the standard hospital and AA treatment program, reviewing his own studies of his own program in The Natural History of Alcoholism” :
It seemed perfectly clear that . . . by inexorably moving patients from dependence upon the general hospital into the treatment system of AA, I was working for the most exciting alcohol program in the world. But then came the rub. Fueled by our enthusiasm, I and the director . . . tried to prove our efficacy. Our clinic followed up our first 100 detoxification patients. . . . [and found] compelling evidence that the results of our treatment were no better than the natural history of the disease.
CBT Recover on George Vaillant's findings:
One interesting observation: a long-term study of over 4,500 subjects found that more treated alcoholics than untreated alcoholics had been abusing or dependent on alcohol within the previous year!
guizot:
If you’ve been court ordered to AA meetings in the past, I can understand your petulance, but it’s not as if AA is some kind of money-making racket, like Scientology. It’s free, and the people I know in AA or NA go maybe once a week, and they go voluntarily. I’m pretty sure if it didn’t help them, they wouldn’t do it. They’re not brainwashed–they’re not even religious, either. Moreover, they’re sober, productive people, who once were broke, miserable, dysfunctional and even living on the street. If AA is “all in their head,” doesn’t that mean it’s working anyway? What does it matter?
It’s precisely the same as a judge prescribing you to go to a Church every Sunday morning for a year or face jail. Separation of church and state and all that.