A fantastic book and complete alternative to the AA approach is Allen Carr's Easy Way to Control Alcohol. It focuses on the reasons TO drink which is unusual. And it does a good job of dismantling them.
Alcoholics Anonymous vs. other approaches: the evidence is now in
221–230 of 366 posts
Re: Alcoholics Anonymous vs. other approaches: the evidence is now in
#222It's noteworthy that all but one of the studies quoted in that meta-review were conducted in the United States. The usual criticism levied against AA is that it takes a religious approach, but that's not even true, it it built on evangelicalism. If you are in the US, you are either evangelical or you at least understand evangelicalism because that's what your friends and colleagues profess. You wonder how AA would fa…
Another noteworthy aspect that is somewhat specific to the US is that AA is often the only available treatment that doesn’t add a significant financial burden on the patient. I can imagine that while one is dealing with substance abuse issues, adding the stress of figuring out how one will finance treatment might prove detrimental to the treatment.
Note that I haven’t read this study (can’t access) so it might have to control for the effects of the cost of treatment.
Re: Alcoholics Anonymous vs. other approaches: the evidence is now in
#223Little known fact: Bill Wilson[1], co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, believed LSD could help alcoholics achieve a "spiritual experience" that was crucial to them attaining sobriety[2] (incidentally, that a spiritual experience could help alcoholics was an idea he got from Carl Jung[3]). Wilson's own experiences with LSD are discussed in detail here: [4] In the 50's and 60's there was research in to using LSD to tre…
Ibduilast, which is a drug that has been on the market in Japan and safely used for 30 years, has also been used to treat alcohol and opioid addiction.[1][2]
[1]https://www.nature.com/articles/npp201710?draft\\u003dcollec... [2]https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/adb.12261
Re: Alcoholics Anonymous vs. other approaches: the evidence is now in
#224It's noteworthy that all but one of the studies quoted in that meta-review were conducted in the United States. The usual criticism levied against AA is that it takes a religious approach, but that's not even true, it it built on evangelicalism. If you are in the US, you are either evangelical or you at least understand evangelicalism because that's what your friends and colleagues profess. You wonder how AA would fa…
> If you are in the US, you are either evangelical or you at least understand evangelicalism because that's what your friends and colleagues profess.
That's very much not true. Evangelicals (even if one also includes Fundamentalists in that category which is wrong) are about half of US Protestants, which are in turn between just over a third and just under half of the population, depending on the specific study.
Re: Alcoholics Anonymous vs. other approaches: the evidence is now in
#225Outsider's uninformed opinion: if you attend AA then regardless of any official narrative or agenda this means you're spending important time with people who (a) used to drink, and (b) don't drink any more. Their example plus hearing what they've got to say seems like an excellent approach.
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Re: Alcoholics Anonymous vs. other approaches: the evidence is now in
#226So far the comments have been about people's prior experiences with the topic (which is great), or prior opinions about the topic (which is ok). But the more interesting story is being overlooked: this is heavy-duty new research that overturns previous conclusions, including the prior expectations of at least one of the lead authors. It would be good to discuss the specifics of the article and the new study.
which might be possible if the article in question didn't come from a paywalled source...
Re: Alcoholics Anonymous vs. other approaches: the evidence is now in
#227So far the comments have been about people's prior experiences with the topic (which is great), or prior opinions about the topic (which is ok). But the more interesting story is being overlooked: this is heavy-duty new research that overturns previous conclusions, including the prior expectations of at least one of the lead authors. It would be good to discuss the specifics of the article and the new study.
Do you think you could elaborate why you believe this is "heavy-duty" new research (or even new research at all, rather than a new meta-analytic synthesis of old research)? My quick read of the study suggests that they examined several outcomes, got null or low powered results on most of them, and chose to highlight the single result which did show a significantly positive effect on recovery; that result was based on…
I think your reply is exactly the sort of high-value reply dang was hoping to see.
Re: Alcoholics Anonymous vs. other approaches: the evidence is now in
#228So far the comments have been about people's prior experiences with the topic (which is great), or prior opinions about the topic (which is ok). But the more interesting story is being overlooked: this is heavy-duty new research that overturns previous conclusions, including the prior expectations of at least one of the lead authors. It would be good to discuss the specifics of the article and the new study.
which might be possible if the article in question didn't come from a paywalled source...
Re: Alcoholics Anonymous vs. other approaches: the evidence is now in
#229Earlier quoted context omitted.
I had other experiences. The friendships I had in AA were superficial. Once, when I was struggling and needed help and people to talk to, I was completely ignored by the people around me. They didn't want to help the struggling - just to have this toxic positivity that nothing is wrong. I later moved out of state. I came back to visit family, and went back to a meeting to find out that there were rumors that I had re…
> When I moved, the meetings I encountered were extremely hostile to atheists. That's unfortunate, and mostly in line with other experiences I've heard from friends, etc. AA seems like just another bullshit Christian recruitment/retention facility, that sometimes accidentally helps people who buy into it recover from addiction. Too bad.
My current sponsor’s higher power was once an imaginary vagina.
It spoke to him and everything.
Try and fit that in the Christianity column.
Re: Alcoholics Anonymous vs. other approaches: the evidence is now in
#230So far the comments have been about people's prior experiences with the topic (which is great), or prior opinions about the topic (which is ok). But the more interesting story is being overlooked: this is heavy-duty new research that overturns previous conclusions, including the prior expectations of at least one of the lead authors. It would be good to discuss the specifics of the article and the new study.
Do you think you could elaborate why you believe this is "heavy-duty" new research (or even new research at all, rather than a new meta-analytic synthesis of old research)? My quick read of the study suggests that they examined several outcomes, got null or low powered results on most of them, and chose to highlight the single result which did show a significantly positive effect on recovery; that result was based on…
Thanks! That's a fabulous comment. By "heavy duty new research" I was just referring to this from the article:
In the last decade or so, researchers have published a number of very high-quality randomized trials and quasi-experiments. Of the 27 studies in the new review, 21 have randomized designs. Together, these flip the conclusion.
That sounds impressive. If it turns out not to be so impressive, that's definitely on topic.