Originally Posted by
navysteve 
If AA did an entire internal survey. How come I wasn't handed one???? I go to meetings. This paper does not report to validate any claims friend. They only report that no credible research has been done on AA itself. AA takes surveys of 5% of its population, that is not research into its effectiveness.
What I meant by "entire internal survey" was that they have only released one survey in its entirety (the 1989 internal survey), not that they do a survey of the entire AA membership. For all other surveys, they released select information such as gender, average length of sobriety, etc.
Five percent is more than enough of a research sample to get an accurate figure on their success rates. In fact, five percent is fairly large sample. Not that it really matters what percentage is surveyed. What matters is the size of the sample itself, and 11,000 people is an extremely large sample. Not only that, the more surveys that are done, the greater the accuracy of the data; and AA has done internal surveys for more than 20 years with almost identical figures each year.
Credible research has been done on 12-step treatment that utilizes AA, so I do not know why they say that in this report. Again, I can't post a link because I have too few posts here, but google
Are alcoholism treatments effective? The Project MATCH data, and it will take you a peer review of Project MATCH, which is the largest study done to date. Amazingly, this study and others correspond almost exactly to the figures in AA's surveys, and that is 5% after one year (some of the studies look at longer sobriety, but the results are still almost identical to the AA's internal survey).
Then you didn't read it. Their names are on page one. I don't know their credentials either.
I read every word of this. It does list the names Arthur, Tom and Glenn; but that does not really say who these people are, as there are millions of Arthurs, Toms and Glenns.
That is your opinion and I would call into question your credibility to make such a claim?
As I wrote before, I was only responding to the quotes you cited, but I could explain how they erroneously came up with those numbers where you would understand. I'm not a mathematician, but I can explain how 2 + 2 does not equal 10. That is not my opinion, it is a mathematical fact. This is almost as basic. It is just amazingly poor.
They are not trying to prove any facts, or make an argument for any success rate. They are talking about the myths in AA about success and failure.
Of course they are trying to prove that AA has a higher success rate than 5%. They are talking about myths, but they are trying to make the argument that a 5% success rate is a myth, hence the title of the paper. I don't know if they manipulated the data on purpose or because they do not understand basic statistics, but that is what they did in reaching their conclusions. As somebody in recovery myself, I don't want to see numbers manipulated and exaggerated to prove a method of recovery is what it is not. I would rather understand the truth and hope we can improve on things. Believing the myth of a 50% or 75% success rate perpetuates a false myth as to AA's effectiveness, and I doubt you or anybody else would want mislead. The difference between five and seventy-five percent goes beyond misleading and into Pinnochio territory, and it is pretty blatant.
I hope I did not offend you, Steve. I understand you just posted a link, and this is not a personal thing against you, the fellowship or anybody on this forum; but that is just a horrifically bad piece of work.