Alcoholics Anonymous: Helpful for some alcoholics

[samiam]

We have had threads here about whether or not Alcoholics Anonymous works over the years. The current scientific consensus is that AA helps keep a large subset of alcoholics sober. Since that link is a New York Times link which may be paywalled, the same report has been covered by Reuters, NPR, Boston’s NPR station, Vox, among others.

What does the report say? It says AA works, it says AA is helpful, it says that AA has a 42% success rate (compared to the 35% success in the control treatment condition). AA does significantly better than other treatments when we measure alcohol abstinence, and as well as other treatments when measuring success in other ways. Point being, AA has been scientifically shown to be a viable low-cost treatment for alcoholism.

While there have been accusations that AA has only a “5% success rate” and what not posted at online forums over the years, the methodology to come up with a figure that low was flawed, and the current scientific evidence shows that AA is helpful for some alcoholics who want to get better (around 40%, if using numbers from this Cochrane metastudy).

 

[Hank77]

My cousin is an AA success story. He began drinking in high school and was a serious alcoholic until his late 30s or so when he got into AA. He is now 78 and has never fallen off the wagon.

 

[RestoreTheJoy]

That's fine if it works. God delivered me completely when I got serious with him. I drank for many years, then I got serious with God, told Him I just could not quit, continued to throw back a few glasses while I read the Bible, and prayed for months about it. One day it was just over and I was free. I have never been to a meeting or spoken out of my mouth that I AM the A word. That seems to be the way to ongoing bondage to meetings and exterior control to me, but then if it is working for someone, it could be a step.

Whom the Son sets free is free indeed.

I've been free for 27 years, lest you think I just stopped a week ago, and am the enthusiastic preacher of something I haven't walked out (you know, like people who just quit smoking and tell everyone about it constantly).

Now, I'm not stupid. I don't hang out in bars, hang around with people drinking, or buy alcohol and keep it around the house. But I also never ever think about alcohol at all, unless I see something like this post. I'm free. I want that for everyone.

 

[FireDragon76]

42 vs. 35 percent success rate isn't extraordinarily different. That's unimpressive, considering that AA takes up time, energy, and involves religious concepts that are not shared by some people. It's philosophical and therapeutic basis is also haphazard, and is more rooted in unverifiable Christian Pietist assumptions about moral and spiritual progress.

There are pharmacological treatments for alcoholism that are far more effective than that.

 

[RestoreTheJoy]

42 vs. 35 percent success rate isn't extraordinarily different. That's unimpressive, considering that AA takes up time, energy, and involves religious concepts that are not shared by some people. It's philosophical and therapeutic basis is also haphazard, and is more rooted in unverifiable Christian Pietist assumptions about moral and spiritual progress.

There are pharmacological treatments for alcoholism that are far more effective than that.

Sure, if you want to be in bondage to some drug. That's not freedom.

 

[Tinker Grey]

Sure, if you want to be in bondage to some drug. That's not freedom.

Do you have a citation that the pharmacological treatment causes a bondage/addiction?

I can let a headache run its course or I can take an aspirin. I don't think that implies bondage to aspirin.

 

[Noxot]

Alcoholism is a good way of ruining your life so praise be to whatever can save a person from that mess. The seven spirits of God come to bless the entire world be it in the guise of a stranger or in the guise of a king, it matters not.

 

[RestoreTheJoy]

Do you have a citation that the pharmacological treatment causes a bondage/addiction?

I can let a headache run its course or I can take an aspirin. I don't think that implies bondage to aspirin.

No, not if you take it once, or on rare occasion. I take an Advil if I feel something coming on.

But if you MUST continue to take some drug to maintain an alcohol-free condition, then it is bondage. You've just relocated your bondage to a new substance.

 

[Tinker Grey]

But if you MUST continue to take some drug to maintain an alcohol-free condition, then it is bondage. You've just relocated your bondage to a new substance.

Do you have a citation?

 

[RestoreTheJoy]

Do you have a citation?

Why do I need one, and who would possibly admit that reliance upon drugs (instead of alcohol) is bondage? No one will use that language when the idea is to normalize necessity for drugs. This is a logic question. If you NEED any pharmaceutical substance to function normally in place of the alcohol you used to numb yourself, you are in bondage to it.

I suppose the argument is that pharmaceutical dependency won't bring the same dangers of drinking and driving....but it still isn't freedom to me. Your mileage may vary.

Actually, it was interesting to look up drugs to treat alcoholism, as I didn't even know. Wherever there is opportunity to make money and get people dependent on something, there Big Pharma is to take advantage of it.

All I can say is that I praise God for what He did for me - and it didn't cost any money or require drugs either. I'm not special. I just believed Him. Jesus Christ is no respecter of persons; if He does something for one, He will do it for another.

 

[Tinker Grey]

Why do I need one, and who would possibly admit that reliance upon drugs (instead of alcohol) is bondage? No one will use that language when the idea is to normalize necessity for drugs. This is a logic question. If you NEED any pharmaceutical substance to function normally in place of the alcohol you used to numb yourself, you are in bondage to it.

You claimed that taking medication would put you in bondage to it. That implies an addiction or the need to take it perpetually. I don't think that is the case. That's why you need a citation.

 

[RestoreTheJoy]

You claimed that taking medication would put you in bondage to it. That implies an addiction or the need to take it perpetually. I don't think that is the case. That's why you need a citation.

I added some language to my previous response. I did see that one was short term. But it was unclear on the others listed. No problem in a temporary help, I suppose, but it seems that this involves lifelong expectations of meetings and such.

For Freedom, Christ has set us free; do not submit again to a yoke of bondage.

 

[Tinker Grey]

I added some language to my previous response. I did see that one was short term. But it was unclear on the others listed. No problem in a temporary help, I suppose, but it seems that this involves lifelong expectations of meetings and such.

For Freedom, Christ has set us free; do not submit again to a yoke of bondage.

Cool.

 

[Petros2015]

But if you MUST continue to take some drug to maintain an alcohol-free condition, then it is bondage. You've just relocated your bondage to a new substance.

Are we talking Antabuse here? I'm 7 years sober in AA; I hear a lot of stories about people who take Antabuse and then try and drink on it lol.

The point of AA is that if you must be in bondage, be in bondage not to a drug or self centeredness but to God. We get into orbit around self and drugs. Need to be in orbit around God. Its better for everyone that way.

 

[RestoreTheJoy]

Are we talking Antabuse here? I'm 7 years sober in AA; I hear a lot of stories about people who take Antabuse and then try and drink on it lol.

The point of AA is that if you must be in bondage, be in bondage not to a drug or self centeredness but to God.


View attachment 288694

Bob Dylan was right.

Gotta Serve Somebody:

Chorus:
But you’re going to have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You’re going to have to serve somebody
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you’re going to have to serve somebody

 

[Petros2015]

I can let a headache run its course or I can take an aspirin.

If you've got a headache, take an aspirin.
If you've got what I've got, take a God.

 

[FireDragon76]

Naltrexone blocks the reward mechanism of alcohol. It isn't addicting.

 

[Petros2015]

Naltrexone blocks the reward mechanism of alcohol. It isn't addicting.

Interesting, I had heard of it under the name Vivitrol, but didn't realize it worked for alcohol too.

Naltrexone - Wikipedia

 

[FireDragon76]

Interesting, I had heard of it under the name Vivitrol, but didn't realize it worked for alcohol too.

Naltrexone - Wikipedia

Patients that take naltrexone don't even have to necessarily stop drinking (they just gradually find it less pleasurable), so it has some advantages over other therapies, in fact.

 

[Tinker Grey]

Patients that take naltrexone don't even have to necessarily stop drinking (they just gradually find it less pleasurable), so it has some advantages over other therapies, in fact.

There doesn't appear to as much research as there should be on this. But fiddling with brain chemistry is tricky. And testing on humans might have ethical problems. But my casual reading of Medications for Alcohol Dependence suggests that most of these appear to be used until the behavior is modified.