courage2

Definitions, definitions. I've seen a lot of people who hadn't had a drink in a few days or months pick up while attending AA and they may blame it on AA. Had they ever been sober? I don't think you can have a relapse unless you've been out of the alcoholic mindset and associated behaviors. As someone I know says, they didn't relapse, they never really quit.

What do you think is a relapse? Then we can (badly) discuss cause and effect.

greens

It's the self fulfilling prophecy of aa, it has scientifically been shown to increase relapses . They've done controlled studies

Boleo

Yahbutt wouldn't the control group contain the people not prone to relapse?

People prone to relapse somehow just end up in AA.

greens

I belive they had a group of drinkers, all knew thy had a problem, all wanting to quit. They sent half to aa , and half to a moderation program. The ones sent to aa relapsed again and again, while the moderation group practiced Drinking moderately or just Abstained.

greens

I could be off, not sure where the link is. It is an interesting topic for sure

Dee74

Are you thinking about the Harvard Grant Study greens?

Grant Study - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Thats not what that study was about.

more here
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...-happy/307439/

esinger

Good luck posting links to moderation management sites here.

greens

Thanks Dee!

JeffreyAK

1-0.27=0.73. Actually it's a bit more complex if I read more carefully.

There were 40,000+ responses, and 4500-odd who said they had been dependent on alcohol (i.e. addicted). 27% had gone to some sort of treatment, and 2/3 were not abusing alcohol anymore, so 18% had gone to treatment and stopped abusing. 73% had not gone to treatment and 3/4 of those were not abusing alcohol anymore, so 55% had not gone to treatment and stopped abusing.

Meaning, 27% of the 4500 were still drinkin' hard, 73% had stopped drinkin' hard (or quit, article does not distinguish). Of those 73%, 3/4 had never been to treatment, 1/4 had.

So, 75% of people who have been alcohol dependent and stopped the problems, stopped the problems on their own. I'd have been one of those if I had been asked these questions between ages 23 and about 40, I drank like a fish in college but cut way back on my own when I left for graduate school and drank moderately (occasional rare binges only) with no significant consequences until I was in my early 40's.

courage2

I understood where you got the value .73. I was writing about how changing definitions could lead to values such as that one.

greens, I'd like to see the study you're referencing. However, I'll note that there are apparently true experiments "proving" the telepathy, the direct power of prayer to cause pregnancies, and various other things. It's called pseudo science. Not saying your study is that, but findings from experiments in social science never ever "prove" anything and a single unreplicated experimental result ain't, frankly, worth a hill of beans in social science, or even in chemistry or physics.

LadyinBC

The commercialization of human suffering happens all the time. It is nothing new. If we want to put addiction as a disease well then it is going to be under medical and it costs money. No different than people having to pay for cancer treatments etc.

I have never paid much attention to the stats of what works and what doesn't cause if I based my recovery on that I would still be drinking. I would have given up before even starting.

It boils down to how badly I want to stay sober. However, I needed help in that regards and I found programs that have given me tools that I need to help me with this. I didn't have to pay for the daytox program I went to, however, my high taxes made it possible for me to go to this, so in sense I guess I did pay for it. However, I would have paid money directly to go to this program if I would have had to. Because I got that much out of it and I needed it. I wouldn't have gotten this far without it.

For some AA works great and that is all they need, for some they need a place they can go to, they need something more. Are these places wrong for advertising it? I personally don't think so as people need to know where these places are. If an ad helped someone here find sobriety and some peace then isn't it worth it?

Treatment is just different for everyone.

greens

Lol that's funny courage and a good point about studies. There r quite a few out there, one was the share study , I can't remember the names of others.

Bmac

Most recent research I read is that there are 17.6 million Americans (8.3% of adults) diagnosed as either "abusers" or "dependent" on alcohol. Appx. 88,000 die each year from issues directly related to alcohol.

If you do the math, 0.5% (one half of one percent) will die as a result of the disease. Jails? Perhaps. Institutions? Perhaps. Death? Statistics say not likely.

courage2

Ah. I'm a statistician, though I wouldn't say a very confident one. Statistics are funny things. They don't describe anyone, only the many. They don't tell you what will happen to you or the person you love, only the odds for someone in the population to which you belong. For the 1 person (or wife or husband, father, mother, son or daughter of the 1 person) out of 200 who dies as a result of alcohol abuse or dependency, it's not not likely. It's certain.

Odds look different when the price of losing is very high.

Bmac

Yup. And he left 10% of those royalties to his long time mistress, Helen Wynn. You know, spiritual awakening and all....

courage2

What's relevant about a mistress?

Ken33xx

neferkamichael

Not only did Bill W. leave 10% of his estate to Helen Wynn, when he knew he was going to die he ask for whiskey and it made him bitterly anger when he was refused. That just proves how powerful addiction to chemical substances is.

courage2

Depending on how much money he had, 10% could have been a kind gesture, a big payoff, or like Shakespeare's second-best bed.

Not getting the whole passing judgment on Bill W thing here.

fini

The real question is: does AA "cause" relapse or does AA simply attract a population that is at high risk for relapse in the first place?


Definitions, definitions. I've seen a lot of people who hadn't had a drink in a few days or months pick up while attending AA and they may blame it on AA.

and i've seen a lot of people using LifeRing and who hadn't had a drink in a few days or months or years then pick up. they blamed it on...uh...themselves. triggers. stress. complacency (whatever they might mean by that).
but no, nobody blamed it on LifeRing.
and not for a minute do i think that's because LifeRing is a "better" method or attracts "people less prone to relapse", but it's because people using secular programs/support choose those programs because of the very self-reliance emphasized there. therefore, logically, they can only blame themselves.
and because people stick around AA longer than the recovery-systems that encourage quit-and-then-go-on-your-merry-way, relapses are more visible of those who attend AA.
okay. all that just to say no, i do not think AA nor LR nor SMART cause relapse. the cause is in the person.