Still, you must admire whatever personal philosophy has led him to be such a warm and generous person. Kind of a cross between the Dalai Lama and Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog.
You really are an idiot, aren’t you?
Regards,
Shodan
@ Chefguy: I am no Evil Economist fan, but I don’t think that you read his post very closely.
You guys are the best.
Only when we are drinking.
Regards,
Shodan
Shodan, Can you clarify your stance for me please? Are you saying that AA does not work at all and therefore you believe that the OP of that other thread should avoid it, or do you concede that AA does work for some people but no more so than other methods out there?
AA has no effect. Whether you join AA or not will make no difference to your ultimate ability to quit drinking.
There is no good evidence that AA “works for some people”, because as far as the statistics go, people who join AA are no more likely to quit drinking as they would be after doing any other form of recovery, or no form at all.
The idea that AA “works for some people” is a logical fallacy. As I said earlier, wearing different color socks is not evidence that wearing different color socks “works for some people”. Because there is no difference in outcome whether you wear different color socks or not.
Regards,
Shodan
So what do you do about all of those sober people running around that say that AA is what did it for them?
It looks to me as though your conclusion that AA has no effect is logically flawed. While I find the cited studies problematic on a lot of levels I can see how they would lead someone to conclude that AA has no more effect than anything else. But to reach the conclusion that AA has no effect based on those studies strikes me as deciding an outcome and then trying to work backwards to justifying it.
Are you saying that the people who have gone to AA and got sober would have gotten sober no matter what they did, including nothing? Are people just struck sober? Your position makes no sense.
I should probably stick some sort of passive-aggressive sniping, instead. I could “disguise” it as “cleverness.” People who do that are better people than meanies like me.
Meh, still needs work.
Some people get sober all the time. Some of them will be in AA when they do.
You’re falling into the trap of homeopaths and astrologers here. Plenty of people got better while taking homeopathic medicine. But they did it because people usually get better. Drinking snake oil just gets the credit.
I would say that successfully stopping drinking requires the formation of the proper mental resolve. Clearly for some, joining AA merely marks the point when they have come to that resolve.
Well, yes. Some people go to AA and then immediately get hit by cars. Does that mean AA helps you get hit by a car?
No, that’s what the studies seemed to show.
Let’s try this one more time.
I divide a group of alcoholics into two equal parts. One gets no treatment, the other group sings “The Star Spangled Banner” every morning before breakfast. Wait a year.
At the end of the year, five alcoholics from each group are sober and abstinent. One would conclude, therefore, that singing “The Star-Spangled Banner” is the same as doing nothing.
“But”, you say, “how do you account for all those people who got sober after they sang our national anthem?”
The point is, there is nothing to account for. The studies that you seem to have so much trouble understanding are designed to find out what effect AA has on the ability of people to become sober.
There is no such effect. Whether or not you go to AA, or sing the Star Spangled Banner, or just grit your teeth and try, the net effect is no different than if you had done anything else.
In any situation like this, you will always get people who say “I tried everything - AA, treatment, Rational Recovery, quitting on my own - but nothing worked until I started singing the Star Spangled Banner every morning before breakfast. That helped me get sober.” It is a natural human tendency to credit recovery from an illness to whatever you were doing when you started to get better. It happens all the time, which is why there is a name for it - post hoc, ergo propter hoc.
If you got sober, that’s great - good for you. But the sun doesn’t necessarily come up because the rooster crowed.
Regards,
Shodan
Ok, ok, I get all that. But tell me something. How do you explain the people that went to AA and did get sober.
Shodan, can you please answer this question directly for me. Skip your hypothetical studies please. Do you claim that all of the people that are currently sober and currently in AA would be sober had they never joined AA? Please limit your response to “yes” or “no”.
Thanks in advance.
The same way I explain the people who sang the Star Spangled Banner every morning and got sober.
Regards,
Shodan
I ask again.
Yeah. I get it. I was joking.
Studies apply to groups, not individuals. So the correct answer to your question is not “yes” or “no”.
It is “the people who are in AA and sober had the same chance of being sober if they had done anything else other than join AA”. That is as far as the studies can establish.
If you have some kind of evidence (by which I do not mean anecdotes) that AA works better than nothing for people who have tried everything else, then by all means let’s see it.
Regards,
Shodan
:smack:
I must have been drunk.
Regards,
Shodan