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Alcoholics Anonymous vs. other approaches: the evidence is now in

nytimes.com

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Re: Alcoholics Anonymous vs. other approaches: the evidence is now in

#271

Post by bawolff »

iateanapple wrote: post #205
athrowaway69 wrote: post #137

Earlier 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. In my experience there are two types of atheists who go to AA: those for whom religion “isn’t their thing” and those who are actively hostile to religion. I think the latter group should find an alternative to AA.

If religion just "isn't your thing" I'm pretty sure that makes you an agnostic not an atheist.

However the majority of atheists in my exerience are a bit more mellow. You can fully believe there is no grand deity without being "hostile" to the belief.

As an example (that maybe is more generally relatable): I believe the world is round. I don't think I am hostile to the flat earthers. I think they are wrong based on evidence, but their ideas don't disgust me. I don't want to burn them at the stake or harass them. If they leave me alone I am content to leave them alone. So I dont think i am hostile to their beliefs. However i would never describe my relationship to the flat earth "theory" as "just not my thing".

Re: Alcoholics Anonymous vs. other approaches: the evidence is now in

#273

Post by jariel »

sgift wrote: post #103
keiferski wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The various results for "atheists removed from AA" or "atheists kicked out of AA" on Google tell me AA works with the personal god version, not the others ones.

That there are results to validate that this happens on some occasions, doesn't mean it's universal or even common. I suggest trying another 'google search' and you'll find there are plenty of AA meetings for which the 'higher power' element is more agnostic, and plenty for which is almost not relevant.

Re: Alcoholics Anonymous vs. other approaches: the evidence is now in

#274

Post by thrownaway954 »

api wrote: post #12

It's the community. Half the members of AA can't even name all the steps, but in AA they find kinship with other people with similar experiences and similar struggles. Humans are hyper-social. We live better, grow better, heal better, and confront difficulties better when we have others. This is true for introverts too. Introverts are not anti-social, they just have a more muted less intense social style.

the old saying is... you are who you hang with.

hang around with good, positive people and good, positive things will happen.

Re: Alcoholics Anonymous vs. other approaches: the evidence is now in

#275

Post by jariel »

simion314 wrote: post #66
shoes_for_thee wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes I think that spirituality is something people either "get" or they don't. For me, to consider the very fact of existence rather than non-existence, the beauty and order of it, the people around me who have somehow manifested as conscious beings from chaos... (and on and on)... none of those things require a supreme being or intelligent creator, but the sense of awe after giving sufficient consideration is d…

I agree the fact we exist and we can consider our existence is something special but still it won't help me with believing that things will be better tomorrow or that there is an afterlife. when I was a child I wanted to become a priest, I read all the books and I was a believer, the giant mistake the priests and religion teacher made is to be dogmatic, like to still consider that "creation happened as it is said in…

"that the world is 5000 years old"?

Don't blame 'religion' in general for such things when frankly only a tiny group of people actually believe that; mostly American frankly.

And also contemplate that there might be reasons why spiritual affiliations have a tendency towards dogma - it's a powerful social instrument. Almost all groups of every kind are dogmatic, it's what we use to 'fill in the blanks' and for most of illiterate or semi-literate history it was 'good enough'. It can be used for good or evil surely, but it's pragmatic.

Everyone seems to be arguing about religion but not focusing on what aspects of it might relate to the ostensible success of AA.

Re: Alcoholics Anonymous vs. other approaches: the evidence is now in

#276

Post by taurath »

daseiner1 wrote: post #249
taurath wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Don't get tied up in militant atheist perspectives. Not that you're saying its not, but I'd grasp onto this to add a point that its valid and useful to debate whether that surrendering is the best path. In my mind, what you're being asked to do is abstract and make a virtual externalization of your ego. The benefit is you can get some of the benefits of ego-depletion or ego-loss, but the side effect is that it risk…

all that and you entirely missed the point. surrender as a broad concept is necessary because alcoholism is an illogical, slippery disease. to get sober, you have to accept that you cannot do something that it seems like everyone else can

Or.... get some distance from the problem, then work on addressing the underlying reasons you go to it, while practicing not doing it. There are many paths.

Re: Alcoholics Anonymous vs. other approaches: the evidence is now in

#277

Post by alex_hitchins »

apatters wrote: post #265
elixanchor wrote: post #115

recovering addict here. some words for those who may be struggling. i tried a number of things over many years (life coach, therapy, meditation retreats, ayahuasca, ibogaine, etc). i reached a bottom, and nothing i had tried really worked or stuck. kept relapsing after a few months of sobriety at most. ultimately it was going to AA that i largely credit to my successful transformation into a happy life of sobriety. i…

AA's 12 Steps use the word God four times. They also refer to "Him" three times, to a higher "Power," a "spiritual awakening," and prayer. Nearly every step has a reference to spirituality of some kind and most of them are laced with Christian undertones. More generally the idea behind the 12 steps is to place yourself in the hands of this higher power and allow it to guide you. Basically it requires a belief in pray…

I came here to say the same (but undoubtedly not nearly as well as yourself).

It was the religious stuff that put me off completely. Being in a group of people all there with a common cause I felt was quite powerful. Hearing shared experiences from the community was helpful. I just couldn't pretend I was OK with peddling any form of faith.

Re: Alcoholics Anonymous vs. other approaches: the evidence is now in

#278

Post by crawfordcomeaux »

runarberg wrote: post #234
notafraudster wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> And for "rates of continuous abstinence" they found a positive effect. It’s been a while since I reviewed the literature for substance abuse disorder, but if I remember correctly it was highly disputed whether complete abstinence was necessary (or even beneficial) for treatment. Has this changed? The argument was that by focusing on abstinence you are setting a significant part of your patience up for failure with…

I'm a recovering information addict, food addict, sex addict, and love addict.

Doing the same behaviors in a mindful way instead of out of a desire to mask/numb/avoid matters.

Also, I stopped counting my various abstinence stretches because it's not actionable information. I don't assess my recovery that way. I take a look at my needs and identify how I'm doing meeting them.

Re: Alcoholics Anonymous vs. other approaches: the evidence is now in

#279

Post by bmn__ »

apatters wrote: post #265
elixanchor wrote: post #115

recovering addict here. some words for those who may be struggling. i tried a number of things over many years (life coach, therapy, meditation retreats, ayahuasca, ibogaine, etc). i reached a bottom, and nothing i had tried really worked or stuck. kept relapsing after a few months of sobriety at most. ultimately it was going to AA that i largely credit to my successful transformation into a happy life of sobriety. i…

AA's 12 Steps use the word God four times. They also refer to "Him" three times, to a higher "Power," a "spiritual awakening," and prayer. Nearly every step has a reference to spirituality of some kind and most of them are laced with Christian undertones. More generally the idea behind the 12 steps is to place yourself in the hands of this higher power and allow it to guide you. Basically it requires a belief in pray…

https://aaagnostica.org • https://aabeyondbelief.org • https://alcoholics12steps.com • https://lifering.org/ • https://old.reddit.com/r/AtheistTwelveSteppers • https://secularaa.org • https://smartrecovery.org • https://sossobriety.org

Re: Alcoholics Anonymous vs. other approaches: the evidence is now in

#280

Post by [deleted] »

toofy wrote: post #169
athrowaway69 wrote: post #137

Earlier 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…

> ... and went back to a meeting to find out that there were rumors that I had relapsed after I moved and continued using until I was homeless. It was a drama fest. I obviously don’t have your unique and nuanced understanding of the situation, but this seems like a common occurrence with all humans when they lack information. In my experience when we don’t have information, our group tendencies lean towards filling g…

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