Posted on 07/25/2006 10:52:10 PM PDT by neverdem
When Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12-step programs are examined in controlled studies, a new review reports, scientists find no proof that they are superior to any other intervention in reducing alcohol dependence or alcohol-related problems.
The researchers, led by Marica Ferri of the Italian Agency for Public Health in Rome, found little to suggest that 12-step programs reduced the severity of addiction any more than any other intervention. And no data showed that 12-step interventions were any more — or any less — successful in increasing the number of people who stayed in treatment or reducing the number who relapsed after being sober.
Alcoholics Anonymous is a self-help group that offers emotional support for alcohol abstinence and holds that alcoholism is a spiritual and a medical disease.
In some of the studies reviewed, A.A. was compared with other psychological treatments including cognitive-behavioral therapy, which encourages the conscious identification of high-risk situations for alcohol use; motivational enhancement therapy, based on principles of social and cognitive psychology; and relapse prevention therapy, a variation on the cognitive-behavioral approach. It was also compared with other spiritual and nonspiritual 12-step programs.
One study compared brief advice to attend A.A. meetings to motivational methods for encouraging 12-step involvement. Another evaluated the effectiveness of hospital-based 12-step programs, compared with community-based 12-step efforts.
The paper was published last week in The Cochrane Library, a journal devoted to systematic reviews of health care interventions. In all, the researchers examined eight trials involving 3,417 men and women ages 18 and older.
None of the studies compared A.A. with no treatment at all, and the researchers said that made it more difficult to draw conclusions about effectiveness. About one-fifth of alcoholics achieve long-term sobriety without treatment.
There is no single known cause of alcoholism, but the researchers wrote that...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Why should moderation be the goal? People have a great life without alcohol.
I really had come to expect a more educated view from my fellow FReeper, maybe the MTV crowd is taking over
But you drove home. Begging a DUI, no?
You'd be wrong to 'judge' anything by my screen name. It has much more to do with the dog hair I live with than drinking which I only do occasionally any more. I am not near an alchoholic. I played one in college, but so did many.
Mine was an observation of AA from someone who should never have been there.
not quite true....look at 7,11, & 12
AA works, AA don't work...AA no better than....
I really don't give a spit.
It's about life or an early death.
If a hopeless, helpless drunk can quit drinking wearing underwear on his head, God Bless him !
Yeah, I can see the vast difference.
Flying is a bad example. It's more like, If you are allergic to peanut butter, and you get sick from eating it, you are much better off leaving it alone. The problem would arise when peanut butter also had the effect (like alcohol does with an alcoholic)of making you crave it physically and obsess over it mentally, any time you took even the smallest taste. Would you also posit that not eating a substance that makes you ill is "begging the question"?
But DUI is?
Actually there are many. The "one hit and you're an addict" is 1980s-era "War on Drugs" propaganda.
For sure, there are many addicts, but there are many who shoot up on occasion or smoke a rock now and then and still lead functioning, productive lives. We just don't hear about them until they get busted (or overdose).
Without getting into a debate as to whether AA works or not, here is a program that is faith based and has been proven to work. And it's mostly for adults, not teens. http://www.teenchallengeusa.com/
This really is the crux of AA, it seems to me.
My father was an alcoholic. Went to AA. Went to Hazelden. He could never get beyond alcohol. Ended up with two broken marriages, estranged children and extended family, and what could best be described as perhaps an emptiness in his life.
Not that he was not self-aware. After he died a few years ago, my sister and I were putting his personal belongings in order and found some notes from his time at Hazelden. He knew what the problem was - he was unable/unwilling to do what it took to correct the problem.
I believe he felt he could never shake alcohol and conceding that, gradually became isolated and withdrawn, rarely seeing family and visitors. My brother and half-sister would run errands for him that were of import. But he died young (66) and never was able (IMHO) to realize his full potential as a father, husband, member of society.
If AA is what it takes for folks to not engage in the non-destructive behavior that alcoholism leads to, I fully support AA, or any other program that leads to success, even if measured day by day.
should be:
destructive behavior that alcoholism leads to
Look, they're virtually the same. The article is about 12-Step programs, and I went to the 12-Step website. This isn't Holy Writ here, ace.
you really don't know what you are talking about, do you...
They tell me that you are not responsible for your disease of addiction -- but you are responsible for your recovery!
My observation of other people's experience is that heroin stops functioning as a 'high' quickly and is then required to feel normal. Those people can function -- but they are no longer getting high.
Agreed.
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