Alcoholics Anonymous: Helpful for some alcoholics

[Petros2015]

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.

Heh. So do late stage alcoholics though - a lot of the stories of the people in the rooms are that 'it no longer worked', no matter what the quantity or the disasters that followed, but the compulsion for it was still there because by that point they didn't know anything else. Addiction/alcoholism is kind of a two-pronged trap - it both provides the initial pleasure burst, but it also reduces the pleasures of everything else. It becomes the dominant coping mechanism for life as it makes life and life more unmanageable, then the coping mechanism stops working. We call this the 'jumping-off' place.

Some day he will be unable to imagine life either with alcohol or without it. Then he will know loneliness such as few do. He will be at the jumping-off place. He will wish for the end.

I think all options should be pursued, and medication could be very helpful in early stages. Many people can recover without AA, but past a certain point, "recovery" isn't about not using a drug, it's about resurrecting something that has been more or less destroyed; a pill or a drug could help you not get to that point, a pill or a drug could help you after you've come back from that point to not return to it. But actually bringing someone back from that point is (I think) an act of God, either directly or through someone on whose behalf He has acted before.

 

[Nithavela]

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.

Most drugs that treat alcohol addition aren't taken continually. Most are taken to supress the dopamine release after drinking alcohol, so that the person stops associating drinking with pleasure. Once that association is broken, the drug can be discontinued.

It doesn't work for everyone. Neither does AA.

One popular truism about AA is that "it works if you work it". As shown by the studies cited above, AA doesn't work in the majority of cases. People who don't succeed with AA shouldn't be made to feel bad and being told that they are to blame for "falling off the bandwagon", they should be offered other treatments until something works.

 

[Nithavela]

Heh. So do late stage alcoholics though - a lot of the stories of the people in the rooms are that 'it no longer worked', no matter what the quantity or the disasters that followed, but the compulsion for it was still there because by that point they didn't know anything else.

Naltrexone also eliminates the compulsion.

 

[Nithavela]

Here is another study about drugs I found very interesting:

Rat Park — Stuart McMillen

 

[FireDragon76]

Alot of AA is contextualized in moralistic religious mumbo jumbo mixed with some good advice, in that way it can potentially syphon vulnerable people into harmful religious communities.

So alternatives to AA can only be a good thing, IMO.

 

[Nithavela]

Alot of AA is contextualized in moralistic religious mumbo jumbo mixed with some good advice, in that way it can potentially syphon vulnerable people into harmful religious communities.

So alternatives to AA can only be a good thing, IMO.

I think that for many members of AA, AA is their "rat park". And if it works for them and stays that way, more power to them.

 

[RestoreTheJoy]

Most drugs that treat alcohol addition aren't taken continually. Most are taken to supress the dopamine release after drinking alcohol, so that the person stops associating drinking with pleasure. Once that association is broken, the drug can be discontinued.

It doesn't work for everyone. Neither does AA.

One popular truism about AA is that "it works if you work it". As shown by the studies cited above, AA doesn't work in the majority of cases. People who don't succeed with AA shouldn't be made to feel bad and being told that they are to blame for "falling off the bandwagon", they should be offered other treatments until something works.

God works. And He is FREE, and doesn't require an outlay of cash or regular pronouncements out of your mouth that you are bound by the thing from which He set you free.

27 years now

 

[Nithavela]

God works. And He is FREE, and doesn't require an outlay of cash or regular pronouncements out of your mouth that you are bound by the thing from which He set you free.

27 years now

Do you think that if something works for you, it must work for everyone?

 

[Tinker Grey]

I've seen this program recommended. Here is a review (I posted it rather than the actual link): A Review of the SMART Addiction Recovery Program

 

[RestoreTheJoy]

Do you think that if something works for you, it must work for everyone?

I know that God is no respecter of persons.

 

[Verv]

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.

This is wrong.

He is talking about how being in a position of continuously maintaining some other habit is still remaining in bondage. He has made no claim that it remains as a physical addiction, and this would never be empirically provable.

 

[WrappedUpinHisLove]

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.

Wonderful testimony!

I have nothing against 12 step programmes and find God used them to help me, for me it is process, but I also know there are testimonies like your out there too!

 

[samiam]

(Necrothread comment: These comments were made about a month after I took a break from CF, so I am finally addressing them)

42 vs. 35 percent success rate isn't extraordinarily different. That's unimpressive

As shown by the studies cited above, AA doesn't work in the majority of cases.

Alcoholism is a hard illness to treat. A 7% improvement is remarkably good; no matter what we throw at alcoholism, we get this “dodo bird” effect where everything has about a 33% success rate. The fact we’re getting a 42% success rate with AA-centered treatments is pretty remarkable.

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

While cherry picked studies claim a higher success rate, when looking at studies overall, Naltrexone has about a 11% success rate: It helps about one in 9 alcoholics.