Does alcoholics anonymous help people actually quit drinking?
Question by PerrythePlatypuspf: Does alcoholics anonymous help people actually quit drinking?
I was wondering if AA actually helps wean people off the “sauce” or if they just help people after they’ve quit drinking.
Best answer:
Answer by Dave C
Both… it helps those wanting to quit and those that have stopped.
Ultimately, it’s up the the individual to quit.
The support group is there to give encouragement and a way of coping.
What do you think? Answer below!
August 19th, 2010 at 6:29 am
The idea here is to quit and to quit for life.
You have to make the choice to want to quit no one can or will force that issue.
Once the issue of you making the decision to quit then the group is there to offer you support and solidarity in your offer to stop drinking and more importantly not to drink in the future either.
This may also offer you some like minded people to socialize with. You may go out to coffee etc. This is important because (especially initially) you really don’t want to be around people who are drinking.
The idea of the group is to get and keep people sober.
August 19th, 2010 at 6:47 am
yes it helps them stop it…. its easier to accomplish stuff with support, and experienced people.
August 19th, 2010 at 7:31 am
I HAAAAAAAAAATEEE A.A. If someone wants to be an alcoholic let them. I had to go to court ordered A.A. meetings after my 3rd DUI and I used to go drunk to piss them off. What a bunch of cowards.
August 19th, 2010 at 7:45 am
Neither. AA does not detox people, although most detoxes push AA.
AA has about a 5% success rate, the same as quitting on your own. People who join AA are showing a certain level of commitment by joining, so you’d think that attending AA would help, but the figures show they do not.
Several studies have shown that not only does AA not improve upon the rate of natural remission, those who fail in AA tend to fall harder and for longer periods of time.
1) Dr. Brandsma found that A.A. increased the rate of binge drinking
2) Dr. Ditman found that A.A. increased the rate of rearrests for public drunkenness
3) Dr. Walsh found that “free A.A.” made later hospitalization more expensive
4) Doctors Orford and Edwards found that having a doctor talk to the patient for just one hour was just as effective as a whole year of A.A.-based treatment.
5) Dr. George E. Vaillant, the A.A. Trustee, found that A.A. treatment was completely ineffective, and raised the death rate in alcoholics. No other way of treating alcoholics produced such a high death rate as did Alcoholics Anonymous.
1) http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-effectiveness.html#Brandsma
2) http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-effectiveness.html#Ditman
3) http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-effectiveness.html#Walsh
4) http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-effectiveness.html#Orford
5) http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-effectiveness.html#Vaillant
Members claim, “But look at all the people in AA that it works for!” For every 100 people that join AA, 95 leave according to AA’s own internal Triennial Surveys:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/3264243/Comments-on-AAs-Triennial-Surveys
They claim to be “spiritual, not religious” yet every time a higher court has examined AA they have concluded that AA is “religious in nature” and that mandated AA is a violation of the Establishment Clause. So far, the list of courts is:
The New York Court of Appeals.
The Second Federal District Court. (NY, VT, CT)
The Seventh Federal District Court. (WI, IN, IL)
The Ninth Federal District Court. (MT, ID, WA, OR, NV, CA, AZ, HI, AK)
The Tennessee Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court has refused to hear appeals of those cases, letting those decisions stand.
The real purpose of AA is to form a new relationship with God, quitting drinking is seen as a byproduct of that new relationship. Here is the core of the program that they claim is not religious:
1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
August 19th, 2010 at 7:48 am
They claim to help with both, but studies show that the people who go to AA are no more successful at quitting than those who decide to stop on their own.
But it may depend on the type of person you are. Some people may be more amenable to social support and pressure.
August 19th, 2010 at 8:19 am
AA does both, assuming the person is ready to stop drinking and to change his or her life.
AA is about changing the personality traits that led one to drink excessively in the first place. I was able to stop drinking for three years on my own, but I was still miserable. When I finally decided I didn’t want to live like that anymore, I got serious about getting sober, not just dry. The past 17 years have been the happiest of my life, and I owe it all to AA and to the god of my understanding.
August 19th, 2010 at 8:43 am
It does but it doesn’t. You make friends and of you help each other cope with your addiction to alcohol. To some the meetings are all they need to others it doesn’t work. With AA you are on the honor system and accidents do occur, rehab is the best way to go.