That doesn't make sense: AA is not very effective at all.
"Based on these data, he put AA’s actual success rate somewhere between 5 and 8 percent."
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/04/the-irr...
Alcoholics Anonymous vs. other approaches: the evidence is now in
91–100 of 366 posts
Re: Alcoholics Anonymous vs. other approaches: the evidence is now in
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well... I did met violent militant atheists, so they DO exist. Thankfully that was many, many years ago, but stuff that happened to me: 1. Atheist stealing my bible then proceeding to play "soccer" using it as ball. 2. And Atheist + Vegan being physically threatening because I was eating meat and was christian. 3. I got hit on the back of my head with a chain, in middle of a university class, completely out of the bl…
If you wanna trade stories I can tell you about growing up atheist in South Carolina, but I don't think it's a productive or effective use of this forum.
I usually, don't talk about these situations, was only replying to the guy directly above me, that DID asked for that.
In my country the population is mostly followers of african religions, although they don't know that (they all claim to be catholics, but don't go to mass, but often go to african-based holidays, festivals, etc... and often believe in african supersticions), atheists are a tiny minority, but they are important, "elite" places, like Academia, politics, mainstream media and so on, have lots of them, and many are blatantly militant, although I cited some anecdotes, during cold war we had atheist guerrilas and violence that needed to be handled by the army (that in turn commited their own atrocities).
I wish people believed more in certain freedoms, for example atheists I know often interpret separation of church and state to mean "freedom from religion", instead of "freedom of religion", but "freedom of religion" should also mean freedom to not believe in anything at all.
Also I wish people would stop conflating some things, for example many atheists I know are biologists (there is a important state-backed biology course in my metro area, often students are sent to MIT, Harvard, etc... in exchange programs), and many believe that biologists that have a religion are evil people that believe in fantasies... meanwhile had leadership in some churches I visited insist that science is evil because evolution and whatnot is not in the bible.
I believe this is part of why we ended in the situation we are discussing on this thread: many atheists intentionally want to dismantle all forms of belief on higher powers, no matter what kind of powers they are, because they conflate being religious with evil.
Re: Alcoholics Anonymous vs. other approaches: the evidence is now in
#93I completely agree with the message that people-helping people is super effective. But I'd like to point out that one of the core tenants of AA is to surrender to a higher power. I'm not advocating in favor of religion. But rather highlighting that maybe people who accept 'surrender' of their own will are more likely to get better. There's something to the concept that seems powerful. Anecdotally, I've known someone…
I wonder if maybe the externalization of will helps to ...reset? the perception of ones self. I'm not sure if I'm wording that the best way.
Example: Sometimes I'll tell people "I'll have this done by X time" in order to externalize the goal. Now, it's not on my own willpower to finish this, it's now an externalized obligation that I need to do or . That externalization makes me push harder to complete things.
Interesting thought
Re: Alcoholics Anonymous vs. other approaches: the evidence is now in
#94I completely agree with the message that people-helping people is super effective. But I'd like to point out that one of the core tenants of AA is to surrender to a higher power. I'm not advocating in favor of religion. But rather highlighting that maybe people who accept 'surrender' of their own will are more likely to get better. There's something to the concept that seems powerful. Anecdotally, I've known someone…
People often get hung up on the contemporary Western conception of a higher power, not realizing that the personal, anthropomorphic God is but one flavor of the concept. Scientific laws or forces are in some sense, a "higher power" - clearly we all surrender to the power of gravity every day.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panentheism
Re: Alcoholics Anonymous vs. other approaches: the evidence is now in
#95I completely agree with the message that people-helping people is super effective. But I'd like to point out that one of the core tenants of AA is to surrender to a higher power. I'm not advocating in favor of religion. But rather highlighting that maybe people who accept 'surrender' of their own will are more likely to get better. There's something to the concept that seems powerful. Anecdotally, I've known someone…
People often get hung up on the contemporary Western conception of a higher power, not realizing that the personal, anthropomorphic God is but one flavor of the concept. Scientific laws or forces are in some sense, a "higher power" - clearly we all surrender to the power of gravity every day. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panentheism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantheism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_god
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Re: Alcoholics Anonymous vs. other approaches: the evidence is now in
#96That doesn't make sense: AA is not very effective at all. "Based on these data, he put AA’s actual success rate somewhere between 5 and 8 percent." https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/04/the-irr...
Maybe AA doesn't have to be very effective for it to be more effective than psychotherapy?
Re: Alcoholics Anonymous vs. other approaches: the evidence is now in
#97The studies in this space are notoriously bad(AA has a lot of true believers, which can lead to publication bias, and psychotherapy research in general is pretty poor). And one the best and largest studies(MATCH) on the topic show that pretty much every non-pharmacological treatment is the same.
For a different take on the literature look at https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/10/26/alcoholics-anonymous-m...
Re: Alcoholics Anonymous vs. other approaches: the evidence is now in
#98I completely agree with the message that people-helping people is super effective. But I'd like to point out that one of the core tenants of AA is to surrender to a higher power. I'm not advocating in favor of religion. But rather highlighting that maybe people who accept 'surrender' of their own will are more likely to get better. There's something to the concept that seems powerful. Anecdotally, I've known someone…
Societies have been driven by religion and spirituality for ages. Of course we have now been enlightened by science buts it's probably one of the challenges of culture to come up with an effective replacement. One that not only not contradicts scientific commonsense but that is also not considered as mumbo jumbo. There's definitely a void left by the demise of religion. Also this leaves the question open whether that…
The fallacy I can't help but point out here is that thinking because of our science we are better off and have somehow been "enlightened" when all evidence points to the contrary, at least not to the things that truly matter: the human condition, life, love, family, relationships: can't say our science and techology has made these things better on a whole, but at least we can binge watch Netflix and play Minecraft together I guess.
Sure, we can crunch numbers and test hypotheses faster, but they were doing that with far more primitive instruments, in most cases even without writing and simply using their minds, for centuries well before the so called Enlightenment period. It seems the more "enlightened" we become the worse off the condition of the human soul becomes, and the more we favor vices and all the things our fathers and mothers tried to warn us against for centuries. Our Science, which in of itself has become a religion, in my view has lead us all to cultures of indulgence, where utilitarianism is the only value to be regarded. I wish you could say at least we aren't slaughtering ourselves anymore in the name of Religion, but sure enough, human slaughtering has increased by entire factors these past two centuries, than the previous 100 combined, "Enlightenment" or not.
The notion of man gaining reason and "growing out of" religion during this period is in of itself such a hilariously cliche, Western-centric viewpoint of history but this is another issue of itself.
Re: Alcoholics Anonymous vs. other approaches: the evidence is now in
#99I completely agree with the message that people-helping people is super effective. But I'd like to point out that one of the core tenants of AA is to surrender to a higher power. I'm not advocating in favor of religion. But rather highlighting that maybe people who accept 'surrender' of their own will are more likely to get better. There's something to the concept that seems powerful. Anecdotally, I've known someone…
I think there's a major understanding of this part of AA. This DOES NOT mean acknowledging that you believe there is a god. The concept of a "higher power" can mean anything you want it to mean. You can imagine your higher power is Gandalf, Sauron, elves at the bottom of the garden, or even some aspect of your "best self." You could imagine it to be the spirits of your ancestors or even something like the energy of t…
If it can be anything, including imaginary things, then what's the point?
Re: Alcoholics Anonymous vs. other approaches: the evidence is now in
#100Trying to find sources to confirm this, but I've repeatedly heard that cognitive behavioral therapy dominated AA in effectiveness. I would take this more as an indictment of psychotherapy than an endorsement of AA. Edit: I found a review of Project MATCH[1]. > Background > Project MATCH was the largest and most expensive alcoholism treatment trial ever conducted. The results were disappointing. There were essentially…
I'm positive you can find many therapies and other methods that end up working better than AA.
I went through some of those methods and they are very effective. It also cost me around $10k, and that's after very good insurance.
Many (most?) alcoholics are not in a position where they can spend 10k on treatment. So it's really a moot comparison. Further confounding many of the studies is that AA is filled with people who are there by court order or other reasons. It's not at all a fair comparison. In most of these studies, someone who slips up and has a single drink after 2 years of sobriety is bucketed in with someone who only has a week of sobriety total.
I've actually talked to my addictions therapist about this, and is his opinion, every single study done surrounding AA has been absolute garbage.