Tommyh

I have a friend,sober 56 years who knew a lady who came to a AA meeting in 1960,bought a Big Book,and never drank again until she died in the last 10 years or so..She never attended AA again either
those people figuring the stats would miss her.

fini

It would be interesting to see a failure rate for participants in AA.

maybe you missed the link i posted above? the article is only about 35 pages, if i remember correctly, and probably has more info than you imagine

CDubbs

When I came into the rooms in 1996 we were given the 1 in 33 statistic for recovery. That wasn't just for people who went to AA, it was a general statistic for all alcoholics everywhere. Pretty bleak, downright scary, but true.

We were also told that if you stayed in the rooms and found the program that worked for you, it really came down to just you. You were either going to be 1 of 1 or 0 for 1. So like anything in life you had a 50-50 chance of recovery. A 50-50 chance of the miracle happening that the BB talks about. And that is all that really mattered. Who couldn't live with that? Those were the only odds that counted to me.

And so I have worked my program for 21 years. 21 years of one day at a time. Enjoying that miracle every single day... .

Dee74

Welcome to SR CDubbs

D

CDubbs

Hi Dee. Thanks for the welcome.

sugarbear1

Sober Recovery; this website!

Glad you are here!

CDubbs

See, I just knew I lost some brain cells along the way

Ken33xx

The only statistic that counts in AA is your own sobriety.

tomsteve

welcome,CDubbs.
ive heard us alkies can sometimes understate things- like losing some brain cells.

nez

100% of people, born in DeFuniak Springs, Florida, die.

Stats (AKA...seeming to appear true)

Statistics are pure floccinaucinihilipilification. :~)

Stats have no bearing on my recovery, steps do.

SoberCAH

The 1 in 33 statistic is the number I heard when I got sober.

I decided that I would do everything I could to be that 1.

God and AA (which I believe to be an instrument of God) have worked 100% for me since 1988.

The fallacy in trying to quantify statistics for AA "success" is how you count an AA "failure".

If someone, under a court order, goes to meetings until he or she gets off of their mandated meetings, is that really a "failure"?

If someone goes to a meeting or 2 or 3 or 10 or whatever, quits going to meetings, doesn't get a sponsor, doesn't work the steps, doesn't do service work, doesn't read the literature, continues to hang out with his or her drinking buddies, etc., is that really an AA "failure"?

If someone with severe depression takes his or her meds for a week and then quits, does that represent a failure on the part of the anti-depressants?

If someone with a serious infection takes antibiotics for a day or 2 and then quits and remains sick, is that a failure of the antibiotics?

If someone described in the opening paragraphs of Chapter 5 who is constitutionally unable of being honest with himself (or herself), is that an AA failure?

For me, an AA failure would be a circumstance in which someone goes to meetings throughout that person's attempted recovery, gets a sponsor, works the steps, does service work, reads our literature, discontinues hanging around with his or her drinking pals and continues to relapse and never achieve sobriety.

I see these statistics a good bit and they make for great fodder in the media and in forums like this, but I seldom see any statistics regarding the success rates for other programs or methods of sobriety.

The 35 page article referred to above may be one of the few which does a comparative assessment of the various methods of sobriety - I simply don't have the time to look at it.

If it does, then good on its author.

You never see (or at least I haven't seen) threads on this forum about the failure rates of other programs or methods of attaining sobriety.

I would have been dead many years ago without AA, but I have had a rich and reward life ever since I entered the rooms and did what they told me to do.

dsmaxis10

3% lower then spontaneous remission which is 5% so it has to be incorrect

mfanch

I have a 100% rate.

I know SO. MANY. PEOPLE with long-term sobriety. If we all represent the 3-5% or whatever....that means there are A LOT of alcoholics out there. :-)

Wholesome

What I took away from that interview is the same old message that AA can never fail, only people can fail AA. 97% of them. And that doesn't take into account the people who die while trying to make AA work for them. Tragic.

Gottalife

I read recently that the current US membership for AA is equivalent to 17% of the official number of chronic alcoholics in US society.

I also read that this idea that people fail, not AA, is common to all recovery methods, in fact to anything that requires the achievement of an objective, and hard work to get there.

No program for recovery will work if the individual refuses to apply it. It was one of the main alternatives, RR or Lifering perhaps, that states clearly that the outcome is very dependent on the individual. Is AA any different?

I haven't seen many try and fail, yet I have seen plenty fail to try.

JamesfrmEngland

It's hard to treat behaviour.

dwtbd

Ice skating is hard too,

paulokes

Mostly because people are unwilling or don't know how to change.

They say the same in Mental Health circles. ..some folks have entrenched personality traits and behaviour patterns but it's hard to help them...because they don't or won't engage in the kind of help they need to change.

It's not an indictment of them...just the facts. Those that do well are the ones that can develop an inner motivation to change no matter how painful it is.

Same deal with alcoholism I think.

P

joandmelandhan

I hesitate to contribute to this thread in many ways but also feel somewhat compelled to share my experience of AA as a newcomer. Former newcomer that is I no longer attend. First may I say that I have a massive amount of respect and admiration for the fellowship of AA and its members. To have a worldwide support network where 364 days of the year you can fairly easily find a door with the AA symbol on it and walk into a meeting run by volunteers whose only reason to be there is to help the suffering alcoholic is nothing short of miraculous.
The difficulty with statistics is that nobody really knows. Plus as has been pointed out success itself is a subjective word when it comes to sobriety as we are all only as sober as we are today. I do however suspect that AAs "success" is likely to be in decline.
Yes the emergence of other "recovery methods" and the accessibility of such information via the internet may provide choice that was perhaps not there 20 or 30 years ago. But surely this would result in declining numbers of newcomers rather than the success rate.
In my experience / opinion it all surrounds what it takes to "succeed" i.e.
"it works if you work it" and "get a sponsor work the steps" kind of thing......
Great! Bring it on!
Oh hang on......I'm a 45 year old single mum, I have 2 jobs, I have 2 school age children, my ex husband only has them once a week, I'm not allowed a make sponsor and there are max 1 in 20 females attend AA where I come from.
That's the rub for me. I do understand the program. I do see how it works. I'm not afraid of AA or prejudice against the higher power concept in any way.
I simply see that there is an issue with a program designed many years ago and the demographic of "alcoholics" (for want of a better word) has changed. Many more women. Many more mums of small children. I hear you say that I have contradicted myself when I previously said about 1 in 20 attendees being female. Yes exactly! A massive proportion of women to whom the AA programme is virtually unachievable.
I read previous postings about greeters etc with wistful amazement. That is an amazing idea and I've not once seen anything like that.
I did attend 3 x per week for at least 6 months so I do feel like I have a good feel for AA in my region. No I didn't get a sponsor. Oops yes I did but I was unceremoniously dumped after about a month. I heard time and time again shares from "old-timers" (many of whom I grew to love so this is not meant in a disparaging way) about how much support they received in the bad times and it just didn't seem to be the kind of support network available today. This is all anecdotal of course but I am saying it as I saw it.
I am also a little sad to read posts on the lines of "well it works 100% for me!"..... got to be honest this flies in the face of the spirit of AA IMHO and maybe part of the "problem" (if indeed there is one).
What am I getting at? I do ramble on a bit sorry.......
In my own experience I believe there is potential for AA to ignore changes in society that in turn may result in the program/fellowship becoming less and less relevant.
My two-penneth for what it's worth.....

Wholesome

I think a lot of people try AA because it's sold as the way, but once they walk in and hear all the God talk, and the sinning and repenting spin (character faults and amends) they start wondering if it's a bait and switch? "Wait a minute, I thought we were going to talk about how to quit drinking? Why are we praying and talking about God? You mean I have to believe that an outside force can cure me or I won't get better?" I know that's what happened to me.

I also felt like it was an unsafe environment for women, there were a lot of unsavory men. My last meeting I had a such a creepy experience with a man that I never went back, I thought, Last Time! I'm out.

But hopefully, a lot of that 97% went on to figure out how to quit on their own. AA no longer has the monopoly on recovery.