I just steal the bottles on Mondays when no one is around and then drink in my car. I am pretty sure I’m cured.
I really think that this is a false equivalency though. All that it is saying is that an equal number of people that join AA and that quit on their own stay sober. It is a pretty huge leap to take that fact and get to “therefore AA does not work”. Further, the vast majority of the people that are members of AA that I have met have tried to quit on their own as well as tried a variety of different methods to quit and have finally been able to get the help that they need in AA.
I will reiterate a point that I made earlier that seems to be getting ignored by the anti AA crowd. Simply stated: AA has helped a lot of people and if you are having problems with alcohol it is worth checking out. If it is not useful to you, no big deal. Move on to something else. If it is something that works for you, that’s cool too.
putting a drink to my lips was the context that put me in harm’s way of overconsuming.
Of the five people who I know are in AA, only one of them is religious and goes to church. (Religion is not the same as spirituality.) Yet, while their attitudes about AA vary, all five of them say they don’t see it as a religious thing–it’s not church. (One guy told me that he just sees “God” as his Freudian superego. In fact, he calls himself a “new atheist.”)
But more important, all five of these people say that AA is what keeps them not only from drinking, but also helps them to just deal with life better. Two of these people were more or less homeless and hopeless at one point. Another one, was just a mess, and I knew her back then.
Of course, but AA doesn’t talk about any particular God. They tell you to choose your own. However, I agree that judges shouldn’t force people to go to AA, because that’s contrary to the whole idea. From everything I’ve learned, AA only works for people who chose it of their own will.
The “stats” shown above are meaningless, because AA isn’t like a pill you take–you can’t do a double blind study of AA with a placebo.
You can’t statistically evaluate AA’s usefulness by measuring its “failure” rate, since it attracts so many people who think it will in fact work like a pill.
Moreover, if what you’re saying is that all of the people who go to AA would be just as sober as if they stayed home and watched TV, I find that hard to believe. Why would they even go in the first place? Are you trying to say they’re deluded or brainwashed? In fact, most of them are really busy, and clearly have to make an effort to go out of their way to go to AA. My friends in AA are not the type of people who get deluded easily, if at all. From what they’ve told me, their AA sessions are not anything like what you experienced.
It’s not a leap; it is practically inescapable. If there is no difference in outcome between group A that went thru AA and group B that didn’t, then AA has no effect.
Again, if it were the case that there was some detectable percentage of people who could stop drinking with AA but not otherwise, then those people would have different outcomes and it would show up in the statistics.
Regards,
Shodan
How about if you divide a group of alcoholics into two sections. One gets AA, the other gets nothing. If the percentage of people who have remained sober in both groups after a year is .5%, then AA is no better than nothing.
Regards,
Shodan
But even so, are you* really, truly* physically addicted to alcohol? You haven’t said “yes” or “no”. If you were able to walk away from drinking in the manner you indicated the logical answer is “no”. If that’s the case AA (obviously) does not have all that much to offer you. Beating it up for not being able to properly service your needs when it’s not really designed (at all) for non-addicted, compulsive behavioral/situational drinkers, is kind of unfair.
Yeah, see you still have that inconvenient fact that there are people out there for whom AA has worked. I am personally acquainted with a great deal of them. Your second point also makes no sense. If the vast majority of people for whom AA has worked have tried to get sober through other means you have a detectable percentage.
I think that part of the problem of trying to study AA is that the people that are doing so have some vested interest in trying to prove that AA does not work. I have yet to encounter anything approaching neutrality or reason on this subject.
The fact of the matter is that the way that it works out in real life is that AA tends to be more of a last resort sort of thing. Meaning that people try to get sober without it and eventually wind up in AA.
So what you really have is group A that tries to get sober without AA. Of that group a large majority does not make it. Some of them then wind up in AA and ether do or do not make it. Or struggle for a while and make it. Or whatever.
The point is that this is not an issue that is going to be able to be studied in the way that people are trying to study it. There is a huge amount of movement between the groups of people trying to get sober with AA and the groups trying on their own, or with some other program. In other words, and this is I am sure a huge surprise, alcoholism and addiction is an incredibly complex issue.
If you can divide a group of alcoholics, all of whom are truly ready to get sober (and discontinue all drinking), yes, that would start to make sense. That’s the kind of study I’d be interested in seeing. But that’s something that’s pretty hard to determine.
Moreover, you’d have to have some way of defining and determining a threshold for “alcoholic,” (length of time of addiction, etc.) and you’d have to control for things like income level, etc. A large percentage of the people who normally end up in AA are usually the more serious cases, because they’re broke and without family, and anyone can just walk into AA without money or health insurance.
You’d also have to define what it means to “be in AA.” AA isn’t a procedure which is done on someone. It’s a cognitive behavioral process that one does with oneself, guided by the suggestions of others who have done it successfully. It may or may not include reading the literature and going to sessions; it may be just going to meetings. The whole thing is so loosely defined that your study would unravel pretty quickly. There’s no doctor on hand to give out a certificate confirming that a person is in AA, or doing it completely or sufficiently, and by AA’s own ideology, it’s a life-long process. If someone gets sober with AA for 15 or 20 years, and then goes back to drinking, ending up on the street, has AA failed?
AA is useless to a person who doesn’t really want to stop drinking completely and forever, despite his or her own professed motives. It’s also useless for a person who just wants a quick and easy way to get sober, like going to a doctor, getting a script, and being “cured.”
The real issue for Dangle, I think, is whether he has gotten to a point where even when he drinks only a little, he’s doing that in order to get over anger–or whatever his issues are. If someone does that for enough years, they can become psychologically dependent on the drug more and more, and then physiologically dependent, to the point where their neurotransmitters have been significantly altered. From what he says, it seems like Dangle might have latent alcoholic proclivity, but hasn’t gone through enough physiological changes where he needs something like AA. However, it’s not as though AA would hurt him. It’s free, open to the public, and usually they have it in most cities or towns.
(ETA: Missed Binarydrone’s post above–sorry to repeat the some of the same points.)
What about folks like me? I tried getting sober countless times by myself. I quit drinking about once a month for years. It never worked. I tried god*, I tried abstaining, I tried drinking in moderation. I tried shrinks. I tried everything I could think of. The only thing that worked was getting into A.A. and doing the program.
I’ve read some of those studies you are talking about. By the criteria in the studies I’ve read I would be considered a failure, or at least not a success by the standards of the study. The main reason is that I don’t attend many meetings. Yet I’ve been sober for 6.5+ years, practice the steps just about everyday and when I need it, I hit meetings.
I know a bunch of people in the program. Some of them go to meetings daily. Some are like me and hit meetings as they need it. All of them state that without A.A. they would not be sober.
There is an additional issue that getting sober on your own does not deal with very well. That is the fall out of all the years of drinking. One of the best things, IMHO, about A.A. is that you have the resource of people who have actually been through all the shit and know what to expect and how to deal with it. I am not talking about just getting rid of the craving for alcohol but the wreckage that gets left behind. The bills, lost jobs, damaged relationships. Jail. All that shit. There is someone who has been there and can offer solid advice on how to deal with these problems.
I also believe that a lot of people don’t understand that a huge part of A.A. is getting the drunk to change his or her way of thinking. The physical addiction is bad but it is the mental shit that will make you go back to pick up a drink. Changing the way you think is hard. The steps are all about that.
The change in thinking isn’t about god (though for some people that does help), or a higher power. It is about personal responsibility and how to deal with life’s problems. It is about owning your actions. It is about taking responsibility for what you do. It is about making things right if you do something wrong. It is about being honest. It is about living life as a good person.
I can only speak for myself but after being to a ton of meetings and hearing a lot of people speak I think I can honestly say that alcoholics think in some pretty fucked up ways. What is strange about the whole damned thing is that I get it. I will be in a meeting and hear someone talk about some absolutely insane scheme they have going on in their head and say ‘Yep, I get that. That makes total sense’ while the rational part of my brain is saying ‘Wow, that is so fucked’. A.A. helps me keep that little insane voice inside my head quiet.
On a side note, I went to one of the best treatment centers in the world. Expensive as shit. Their program for alcohol is based on A.A. Their sex addiction program is based upon a 12 step program and they are known as the best in the country for that issue. They had two world renown addiction physicians on staff. The main thrust of the aftercare came down to A.A. Either these docs are a giant rip off, or they know something you don’t.
Slee
*An atheist in A.A. I rarely even notice any god talk. People mention god from time to time but it is extremely minor. If it was all the time, I wouldn’t have lasted.
I should have mentioned that this woman became a highly respected and successful counsellor of alcoholics. And, although she had enormous personal strength, she continued to go to AA meetings when she’d been sober for almost 30 years, because “she needed to go.”
I’ve not examined your study, nor do I have any expertise outside my connection to the woman I mention. But based just on her and her reports, I’d guess Shodan needs to fight his own ignorance, rather than helping AA with its ignorance. 
Nowhere in the AA materials I have read does it say the program’s efficacy is limitted to those “really, truly, physically addicted.” At not one of the over a hundred meetings I attended at ten or so different groups did anyone say that the program’s efficacy is limitted to those “really, truly, physically addicted.”
Moreover, what do you mean when you ask if I was (or anyone else is) “really, truly, physically addicted”? Are you asking if I went through physical withdrawal? If not what?
I went to rehab - shitty dorm rooms, fatty food, lots of cigarette breaks, medically supervised withdrawal (nurses, docs, valium, vitamins), group therapy, and, yes, AA. I had withdrawal. I didn’t stroke out, but I had symptoms of withdrawal (a hangover is a symptom of withdrawal).
So, again, what do you mean by really, truly, physically addicted? Do you really know what you’re asking or are you talking out of your ass?
These people are completely ignoring or discarding huge chunks of the key text. This is absolutely undeniable. AA by its own terms relies on a “higher power” that is ultimately, unavoidably “God.” Moreover, this is a very particualr kind of God. Specifically, it is a God wihtout whose intervnetion you would be unable to stop drinking. Read the first and second step. Read the Big Book. It’s all there. Your atheist buddies can start going to weekly mass, that doesn’t change the fact that the Catholic Church is religious.
I know you were specifically responding to the comparisons of AA to nothing but let’s make sure you don’t exclude a middle. In life, it’s not AA or nothing. I went to AA early on. All of these things you cover above were very helpful to me (the group therapy aspect I mentioned above). They have dick to do with the 12 steps, which is really what defines AA against other methods of recovery…
You’ve made up your own version of AA. According to the materials, the “pyschic change” you’re talking about comes form your higher power. It’s in the book, dude.
As an theist in AA, you necessarily must discount a significant portion of the program’s key text
The inconvenient fact is that there is no indication that AA did work. Post hoc, ergo propter hoc is still a logical fallacy.
Take 300 people who want to stop drinking. Divide them into 3 groups of 100. Group A goes to AA, group B always wears different colored socks, group C quits on their own.
Wait a year. At the end of that time, there are 3 people in each group that are sober.
This is proof that wearing different colored socks “works”, right?
And there is no evidence that AA works any better for those people than anything else. If it did, that would show up in the stats.
Is there a reason that you are basing your thought on a single anecdote rather than rather extensive studies?
If I have a friend who claims that homeopathic medicine cured her cancer, should we then reject all the studies showing homeopathy does no better than placebo?
You have an interesting definition of “fighting ignorance”.
Keep in mind that the question is “does AA work better than anything else/nothing?” Perhaps a highly motivated person of upper SES is more likely to be able to quit drinking than the skid row alcoholic. Nonetheless, we need to compare apples to apples - does the highly motivated, upper-SES alcoholic who joins AA relapse at a lesser rate than the highly motivated, upper-SES alcoholic who is just as conscientious about fulfilling the terms of some other sobriety program?
Regards,
Shodan
This is really very thin. You seem to be trying to say that if I know several people that tell me that they tried several methods to get sober, then tried AA and got sober and are specifically stating that the methods to achieve and maintain sobriety as advocated by AA is what made the difference that this is somehow logically unsound? That makes no sense what so ever.
Also, you keep trying to divide this into these tidy little groups. That is not in any way shape of form what happens in real life. In your example, some of the different colored sock people fail and then go to AA. Some of the quit on their own people will fall off the wagon, try the sock thing and then try AA. Some of the AA people will not like it and try the sock thing. And so on. This issue will not lend itself to statistical analysis in the way that you seem to want it to.
The way that you are trying to shoehorn this issue into places it will not go leads me to think that there is some personal vested interest that you have in AA not working. Because your logic is not very sound here and you are completely ignoring anything that might lead you to a conclusion other than the one that you have already. So what is the deal? Did you have a favorite uncle in AA that got drunk one day and touched your bathing suit place? Did your grandfather run over your puppy on his way to a meeting? You can tell us, honest.
I get dizzy after a couple of weeks - you can tell when Vinyl Turnip has gone on a bender because I start posting again :).
What groups did you belong to, that crammed the Big Book down your throat? I never had anyone push it on me. The one group that was all women had a non-BB reading list (although I didn’t like it much because it was mostly self-help books in the It’s All Men’s Fault mode), and the other one, the one at the hospital*, they weren’t much interested in reading anything**. The general attitude was that the BB might have been an okay guide when it was new, but it simply had not kept pace with the times. So no one was missing anything by not reading it.
*I wasn’t a patient at the hospital; it was just near where I lived.
**Which was very frustrating to me. I’m sure they would have loved The Lost Weekend if they’d tried reading it. And no, as I told them, the movie is nothing, bubkes, compared to the novel. And one of the reasons I was pushing the novel is because it was set in the last year before AA was founded. I would have enjoyed a discussion on whether or not AA might have helped Don.
This is the second time in this thread that a poster has indicated that there is some ‘secret’ reason one must have for not believing in AA.
I also have always had my doubts about the program. Never liked the cult-like way that an alcoholic friend behaved after becoming involved in the program (he’s still drinking and not involved with AA right now). Never liked the whole ‘higher power’ jazz either. I read some articles that claimed that the stats don’t show AA as being successful, and I watched a great Bullshit! episode that debunked many of their claims.
I have no issues with alcohol and have never had alcoholism affect my life negatively. So, I can assure you, it is possible to just not believe in AA…one doesn’t have to have a secret reason.
I believe you. I also think that a lot of people that are “debunking” AA are very obviously not looking at the whole picture and are also protesting a bit too loudly.
As an aside, I would be interested to know about the cult like behavior. I know an awful lot of people in recovery and have not seen this with my own eyes.