Is Alcoholism Really a Disease?

Great Debates
201

[QUOTE=Phlosphr]
Why do professionals in addiction treatment continually point people to AA? Would they (the thousands of professional addiction counselors) point someone to AA if it didn’t work?
[/QUOTE]
Well, for decades, menopausal women were told that hormone replacement therapy was manna from heaven to alleviate their symptoms, and that there was no other manna available.

Oops. I guess that wasn’t exactly true, eh?

My point is that there is a lot of “group think” going on in the medical field, and the HRT example that I gave is just one example of this.

Just because thousands of professional people refer to AA … well, it may or may not mean anything. Thousands of thousands of medical doctors were once thoroughly convinced of the benefits of HRT.

202

[QUOTE=Spiff]
Well, for decades, menopausal women were told that hormone replacement therapy was manna from heaven to alleviate their symptoms, and that there was no other manna available.

Oops. I guess that wasn’t exactly true, eh?

My point is that there is a lot of “group think” going on in the medical field, and the HRT example that I gave is just one example of this.

Just because thousands of professional people refer to AA … well, it may or may not mean anything. Thousands of thousands of medical doctors were once thoroughly convinced of the benefits of HRT.
[/QUOTE]

That’s true. At times I wish there was an alternative that would gain as much notoriety as AA. It takes a group conscious to make a collective change. This has yet to happen.

203

[QUOTE=Spiff]
Well, for decades, menopausal women were told that hormone replacement therapy was manna from heaven to alleviate their symptoms, and that there was no other manna available.

Oops. I guess that wasn’t exactly true, eh?

My point is that there is a lot of “group think” going on in the medical field, and the HRT example that I gave is just one example of this.

Just because thousands of professional people refer to AA … well, it may or may not mean anything. Thousands of thousands of medical doctors were once thoroughly convinced of the benefits of HRT.
[/QUOTE]

Take my HRT away from me, I killya.

(…and don’t call me Francis. Call me Francis, I killya.) :wink:

204

Sorry for the delayed response.

[QUOTE=FRDE]
You said that when losing weight, you broadcast to the world that you are on a mission.

I asked why did you put on weight in the first place.

Find the cause and you’ll get rid of the effect (mostly)
[/QUOTE]

You seem to be in the habit of overstatement – it’s rather annoying. I’m not a “fat slob,” nor did I “broadcast to the world that I am on a mission.” (Even if I was and I did, I don’t think I’d enjoy hearing some stranger put it in those terms.) I’ve got 30 pounds I’d like to lose, and I mentioned it to about half a dozen people.

As for your advice, yeah, that makes sense, but it’s still mostly irrelevant to what I have to say, as well as the thread in general. Whether or not I’m going after the root cause of my problem – or an alcoholic is going after his root causes – involving others in the process is one way of increasing the odds of success. One method doesn’t preculde the other – AA, in fact, is probably conducive to searching out root causes.

205

Still posting on the fly, but here’s the link to decent data about treatment for addiction: http://www.commed.uchc.edu/match/pubs/default.htm

From an earlier thread on the topic:

From: An Alcoholic Quandry - Great Debates - Straight Dope Message Board

206

Here is a page I found with studies thats dispute that.

http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-effectiveness.html

207

The study that you cited said this:

Overall, the three treatments yielded substantial and statistically equivalent outcomes through follow-up periods as long as 3 years (Project MATCH Research Group, 1997a, 1998a). The principal purpose of the study, however, was to determine which clients responded best to which treatments. Four such effects were found. Clients who entered treatment with a high level of state/trait anger fared best in Motivational Enhancement Therapy through the three years of follow-up (PMRG 1997b, 1998a; Waldron et al., 2001). Those whose social support systems favored continued drinking rather than abstinence benefitted most from Twelve-Step facilitation. Outpatients with less concomitant psychopathology likewise fared better in Twelve-Step facilitation than in Cognitive-Behavior therapy. Finally, the Twelve-Step treatment was more beneficial for aftercare patients with high levels of alcohol dependence, whereas those with lower levels of dependence fared better in Cognitive-Behavior Therapy (Babor & Del Boca, 1993).

It seems to me it says all 3 did the same. I’m not sure if there was a control group doing nothing at all, if not all 3 treatments could have been totally worthless. The summeries about what “type” of patents do better in different treatments seem contrived. I’m not a researcher but the catagories that AA seemed to do well again seem contrived by someone trying to prove AA works ex post facto when the actual objective data says no difference in any of the 3.

Again I am no researcher and will take no insult if you say I’m stupid and got it all wrong!

208

[QUOTE=Evil Joe]
The study that you cited said this:

Overall, the three treatments yielded substantial and statistically equivalent outcomes through follow-up periods as long as 3 years (Project MATCH Research Group, 1997a, 1998a). The principal purpose of the study, however, was to determine which clients responded best to which treatments. Four such effects were found. Clients who entered treatment with a high level of state/trait anger fared best in Motivational Enhancement Therapy through the three years of follow-up (PMRG 1997b, 1998a; Waldron et al., 2001). Those whose social support systems favored continued drinking rather than abstinence benefitted most from Twelve-Step facilitation. Outpatients with less concomitant psychopathology likewise fared better in Twelve-Step facilitation than in Cognitive-Behavior therapy. Finally, the Twelve-Step treatment was more beneficial for aftercare patients with high levels of alcohol dependence, whereas those with lower levels of dependence fared better in Cognitive-Behavior Therapy (Babor & Del Boca, 1993).

It seems to me it says all 3 did the same. I’m not sure if there was a control group doing nothing at all, if not all 3 treatments could have been totally worthless. The summeries about what “type” of patents do better in different treatments seem contrived. I’m not a researcher but the catagories that AA seemed to do well again seem contrived by someone trying to prove AA works ex post facto when the actual objective data says no difference in any of the 3.

Again I am no researcher and will take no insult if you say I’m stupid and got it all wrong!
[/QUOTE]

So obviously this study shows that there are some people whose dependence on alcohol is different and who need different help. And all of these people seem to have had help from a structure or from other human beings "which is one of the possible meanings of “higher power”.) Well, DUUUUHHHH!!!

I belong to a group founded in the 1930s by two drunks who had been told by their doctors that they had given up on them, that nothing short of locking them in a cell without alcohol could stop them. They happened to bump into each other in a hotel in Ohio, when both were sober but severely tempted to drink and trying not to. And they discovered an amazing thing.

Take one drunk who cannot control his drinking no matter how hard he tries, and have him discuss and work with another drunk of the same kind, and amazingly enough, you do NOT get two drunks who cannot control their drinking. You get two drunks who can help each other remain sober!

Who knew? It is so counter-intuitive as a concept that it is no wonder that it took until the 1930s for someone to discover it.

I repeat. I am a foaming-at-the-mouth, rabid, militant atheist. If you don’t believe me, click on my name and look up my other posts. I am also an alcoholic. My 16 years in AA have allowed me to remain 100% sober all that time. NEVER ONCE have I felt the slightest pressure to believe anything that is against my beliefs. Never once has anyone raised an eyebrow when I said I was an atheist.

Never once has anyone told me that the program would not work for me unless I started to believe in God.

The only thing I need to accept is that I need help above and beyond my own resources. This is all that “higher power” has to mean. The word “God” is used in the 12 steps because they were written in the 1930s when the higher power for most people was God. But right from the beginning, it has always been perfectly clear that the 12 steps are nothing but suggestions. You can rework them and interpret them any way you want. You can refer to “God” as HP ('higher power") in your own way of saying things, and nobody cares.

NOBODY ever corrects anybody in AA. That is one of the stongest concepts we have. Live and let live.

209

[QUOTE=Valteron]
Never once has anyone told me that the program would not work for me unless I started to believe in God.
[/quote]
Some groups are god-oriented in the extreme. An atheist takes his chances with regard to how much importance a given group will credit the god mindset with.

If that were the case, and AA didn’t have a religious sub-agenda, don’t you think they’d rewrite their bible and remove references to a higher power that are associated specifically with the supernatural? It appears everyone else knows what the word “god” means except the folks at AA. Clarity, people…clarity!

Nobody at your meeting, maybe…I’ve heard reports that are contrary to your experience. There’s not enough structure in the AA organization for any sweeping generalizations to be believed.

210

[QUOTE=Kalhoun]
Some groups are god-oriented in the extreme. An atheist takes his chances with regard to how much importance a given group will credit the god mindset with.

If that were the case, and AA didn’t have a religious sub-agenda, don’t you think they’d rewrite their bible and remove references to a higher power that are associated specifically with the supernatural? It appears everyone else knows what the word “god” means except the folks at AA. Clarity, people…clarity!

Nobody at your meeting, maybe…I’ve heard reports that are contrary to your experience. There’s not enough structure in the AA organization for any sweeping generalizations to be believed.
[/QUOTE]

In the past 16 years, I have been to AA meetings in my own home town of Ottawa, and in every major city in Canada.

I have attended AA meetings in San Francisco, Fort Lauderdale, Washington, and a host of other cities that don’t come to mind right now.

Day after tomorrow I am going to Key West, Fla. for a week. I will go to the AA meetings there once or twice in the week. One of them is held in the hall of a local church, which happens commonly, but this is nothing more than a space arrangement. The church has nothing to do with us in terms of beliefs.

So how come I and my many atheist and agnostic friends have never come across any pressure, alienation at any meetings? Where are these meetings that shove religion down your throat?

211

[QUOTE=Valteron]
In the past 16 years, I have been to AA meetings in my own home town of Ottawa, and in every major city in Canada.

I have attended AA meetings in San Francisco, Fort Lauderdale, Washington, and a host of other cities that don’t come to mind right now.

Day after tomorrow I am going to Key West, Fla. for a week. I will go to the AA meetings there once or twice in the week. One of them is held in the hall of a local church, which happens commonly, but this is nothing more than a space arrangement. The church has nothing to do with us in terms of beliefs.

So how come I and my many atheist and agnostic friends have never come across any pressure, alienation at any meetings? Where are these meetings that shove religion down your throat?
[/QUOTE]

Maybe you have found good ones.

You say being an Atheist makes no difference in AA and the AA literature says the opposite, and my experience follows with how AA considers the Atheist doomed.

212

[QUOTE=Evil Joe]
Maybe you have found good ones.

You say being an Atheist makes no difference in AA and the AA literature says the opposite, and my experience follows with how AA considers the Atheist doomed.
[/QUOTE]

Also just curious, what to you “pray” to as an Atheist?

213

[QUOTE=Valteron]

So how come I and my many atheist and agnostic friends have never come across any pressure, alienation at any meetings? Where are these meetings that shove religion down your throat?
[/QUOTE]

Just lucky, I guess. It also might be the fact that most of your experience is in Canada, which is less god-tied than the U.S. I can tell you that in suburban Chicago, the god thing is virtually always present. Prayer before the meeting begins. **Prayer circles ** at the end. Not joining the prayer circle is marginalizing. It can’t NOT be. No, you don’t have to join them, but if it wasn’t a priority, they would simply encourage people to pray internally and do away with the group prayer thing altogether. That’s not the case. It is organized prayer. If you don’t pray, you are excluded from the “group” during that time.

214

[QUOTE=Valteron]

So how come I and my many atheist and agnostic friends have never come across any pressure, alienation at any meetings? Where are these meetings that shove religion down your throat?
[/QUOTE]

In a past thread Kalhoun eludes to a family member severely traumatized by a militant type sponsor. It’s sad but true. Unfortunately some people can get bad sponsors…it happens. My experience mirrors Valteron’s almost precisely. It is why we continue to post in threads like this, because by in large AA-ers experience is similar across the board. There are unfortunate cases of some bad experiences, and some really, really, bad experiences. It happens. Like when a doc accidentally closes up a scalpal in a patients abdomen. Sad but true.

No, AA says if you go it alone, one may have a much harder time with recovery than if one has a higher power. Valteron has a higher power of his own understanding… this may be what you are not understanding.

215

[QUOTE=Phlosphr]

No, AA says if you go it alone, one may have a much harder time with recovery than if one has a higher power. Valteron has a higher power of his own understanding… this may be what you are not understanding.
[/QUOTE]

Now see…as an atheist, I don’t know why Valteron wouldn’t refer to the “higher power” as a “partner” or “sobriety assistant”, instead. The godspeak is so blatant that I simply cannot understand how those of you involved in the organization can deny it. And why would they continue to call black “white” and night “day?” We have dictionaries for a reason. Clarity, people!

216

[QUOTE=Kalhoun]
Now see…as an atheist, I don’t know why Valteron wouldn’t refer to the “higher power” as a “partner” or “sobriety assistant”, instead. The godspeak is so blatant that I simply cannot understand how those of you involved in the organization can deny it.
[/QUOTE]

Well we deny it because we HAVE to deny it. What you guys are saying is false. Why wouldn’t we deny it. Never in an AA meeting have I been glared at for not saying the Lords Prayer, or supplanting the word God with Higher Power, or God of my understanding. Never has anyone looked at me funny. The big book is often funny to read because it was written in 1939…the blatent references to God and the role of the wives is comical - and BS in todays standards. That is why it has been revised 4 times to include stories that are current…only the first 164 pages are original Bill’s words.

217

[QUOTE=Kalhoun]
Now see…as an atheist, I don’t know why Valteron wouldn’t refer to the “higher power” as a “partner” or “sobriety assistant”, instead. The godspeak is so blatant that I simply cannot understand how those of you involved in the organization can deny it. And why would they continue to call black “white” and night “day?” We have dictionaries for a reason. Clarity, people!
[/QUOTE]

That is exactly how I felt. I was encouraged to crowbar some kind of Higher Power into my beliefs. To twist meanings, to call black “white” as you said and to “pray” to something. I tried VERY hard because I believed as they told me that I had to do this or I was doomed. I was tired of trying to “trick” myself in ideas I knew were not based in reality.

218

[QUOTE=Phlosphr]
Well we deny it because we HAVE to deny it. What you guys are saying is false. Why wouldn’t we deny it. Never in an AA meeting have I been glared at for not saying the Lords Prayer, or supplanting the word God with Higher Power, or God of my understanding. Never has anyone looked at me funny. The big book is often funny to read because it was written in 1939…the blatent references to God and the role of the wives is comical - and BS in todays standards. That is why it has been revised 4 times to include stories that are current…only the first 164 pages are original Bill’s words.
[/QUOTE]

Sort of like the Old Testament and the New Testament, huh? :wink:

219

[QUOTE=Kalhoun]
Sort of like the Old Testament and the New Testament, huh? :wink:
[/QUOTE]

Heh, Heh, Heh… :slight_smile:

It’s tough to enter debates like this. I see AA meetings 4 times a week that work wonders for hundreds of people only in my little neck of Connecticut. We are not openly religious at all. Recently went to a meeting in Boston and got the same thing. Why would I surmise it is all a sham if my empirical evidence states otherwise.

I see it week in and week out. Hitting a few bad meetings, knowing someone with a bad experience, googling to find facts…it’s all well and good, but I have no reason to banter on about the merits of AA if I do not believ what I say. Maybe I am simple minded, like Evil Joe mentioned once. If I am, then there are quite a few simple minded folk out there, includes a shit load of docs and lawyers, professors, and clergy…Heh! I knew they’d get me one day… :wink:

220

There is a meeting in my area that posted a sign that says it is NOT an open meeting (ever). Can one of you tell me if that is a typical approach for many meetings? They actually do let “outsiders” in, but made it rather clear that they don’t care to discuss the god aspect of their group. One member actually said that getting god to fix your addiction requires you giving him permission. The analogy he used was that a painter wouldn’t just paint your house without you asking him to; a person would have to ask god (not a nondescript “higher power”) to fix addiction before you would be able to find sobriety. :rolleyes: