A.A(Alcoholics Anonymous) meetings religious?

nozzferrahhtoo

celticcrash wrote: »

There is no other organization who can come close to help so many alcoholics stay of the drink long term.

Do you have any figures to support this assertion?

celticcrash wrote: »

It would be impossible to do a proper study on AA, as most of its members want to stay anonymous.

There are anonymous methodologies to collate data. "Anonymous" is not an excuse to throw ones hands in the air and simply not try. We do it in medicine all the time.

Also given this lack of statistics.... on what grounds do you make a highly statistically based claim as the one above? You are in one breath telling us that statistics simply can not be complied, but in the breath before us telling us that no other organisation is statistically as good as AA. Which is it then? It can not be both.

sopretty

nozzferrathoo - you will NEVER get statistics, names, performance results lol from AA. Ever.
First of all, there is the complete and utter anonymity of AA. This is what makes it so attractive to people.
AA is conducted on a first name basis only - in fact - you could invent a name for yourself if you felt like it.
How on earth would AA HQ ever begin to measure 'performance' or 'success' rates.
By the completely anonymous nature of the organisation, names etc. are irrelevant.
You don't get a little questionnaire every time you attend an AA meeting looking for your name and how many days you were sober!! Your psychiatrist/counsellor might ask you? Whether you lie or not is open to anyone's guess!
You're looking at AA as if it was a regular scientific sort of reviewable group of therapists!
It's not!!! It's completely and utterly different. I don't get why you're trying to discredit AA. There is no money to be made out of AA. None. The reason psychologists/psychiatrists are not allowed into CLOSED meetings, is that 'the only requirement for membership is a DESIRE TO STOP DRINKING'.
While a psychologist might have an interest in alcoholism, basically, AA operates on the basis that we really only engage with each other when we trust that we're all coming from the same base line . I would never share as honestly and openly with a professional, as I would with an AA member. It's just completely different.

sopretty

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

And would a thread dissecting the lack of efficacy, or harmful side effects, of a given cancer treatment stop people getting treatment for cancer? Or just stop them getting THAT PARTICULAR treatment for cancer?

Putting people off getting treatment is the furthest intention from my mind. Finding methodologies by which we can steer people to the best treatment options is the idea.



No one is denying it so much as pointing out how little that statement actually says. The fact is that if you implemented the most ridiculous program you could think of to help alcoholics, and rolled it out to 2 million people.... you will save lives. It is just a statistical truth that a program, no matter how nonsense or harmful, is going to work on some people. Be it by coincidence.... placebo.... or whatever.

If I went out and knee capped the first 10,000 serious alcoholics I met and told them if they start drinking I would be back for the other knee cap..... I would save lives. SOME of them will simply never drink again.



And I would have to see someone who might benefit from treatment select one with a 5% success rate, fail, and then give up on trying again. I would instead like them to have knowledge of the efficacy rates of all the treatment options available to them, and select as a first port of call the one at the top of the list.

Alas that is currently data we just do not have. Which is the biggest problem with AA to my mind. An unregulated, highly variable, treatment regime not studied adequately for efficacy or potential improvement, run on an ad hoc basis on the ground by people full of good intentions but little guidance or knowledge.... is over all not a good thing.

You are underestimating alcoholics and the power of the illness if you think that being told to stare at a dot will get them through their cravings.
My brain is the keenest sceptic you will come across. I am not an exceptional alcoholic. I am a typical one!
I've had people tell me, go to AA, go into hospital, I've gone to hospital, I've gone to AA, I've gone to rehab, I've taken librium in Rehab and outside on my own at home, I've gone cold turkey, I've spent time in a psychiatric hospital, I have prayed, gotten down on my knees, all the things you could possibly do.
To come out with a statement that 5% of alcoholics would quit drinking by staring at a dot on a wall is the most ignorant, ill-informed, idiotic statement I have ever read in relation to alcoholism - and believe me - I've read some sh1te!! That you believe it yourself is more disturbing!!!

nozzferrahhtoo

sopretty wrote: »

nozzferrathoo - you will NEVER get statistics, names, performance results lol from AA. Ever.

Who knows. You do not know the future. Nor do I. Yet only one of us is pretending to.

I would hope that as our knowledge of addiction grows, that a true epidemiology of research will be invested in and opened up around it, proper and correct procedures and best practices for treatment programmes will be formed, and ad hoc woo based programs like AA will be consigned to the corner with snake oils and other nonsense alternative therapies subscribed to by only a fringe crowd.

That is my ideal hope anyway. I can but dream, and do what little I can to cause change where I can and when.

sopretty wrote: »

I don't get why you're trying to discredit AA.

Then you simply have not been reading the posts I have populated the thread with. Because I have made my basis and my motivations as clear in them as is humanly possible.

sopretty wrote: »

You are underestimating alcoholics and the power of the illness if you think that being told to stare at a dot will get them through their cravings.

Not really. Because I am not suggesting staring at a dot will do any such thing. I am suggesting that statistically no matter how nonsense or bogus your program is, there will be a number of success stories out of it, and people willing to testify to their death bed that your program "saved" them.

This has nothing to do with alcoholics specifically. It is true in many areas of discourse. From addiction treatments, to alternative medicines, to nonsense dietary programmers.

There is a certain base line % of success you expect to statistically get NO MATTER THE TREATMENT. That figure is around 5% which as has been pointed out recently is the exact figure of the success rate we see in AAs own internal documents, on the rare occasion we get to see them.

You can throw out invective like "ill informed" and "iditotic" until your face turns blue and you end up needing a drink. But what I am saying is simply a statistical fact. Like it or not.

If you are reading my posts as saying staring at the dot will actually help them.... then you are simply mis reading my post. I can only advise you pocket the invective and your rage.... and re-read it again. Otherwise we are in danger of losing "SoPretty" and gaining "SoPetty".

sopretty

Ah here - this has gone beyond ridiculous at this stage! Good luck!

seamus

Ivaniayo wrote: »

I know several people that were helped greatly by the AA when they were at their wits end, and their families were supported by Al Anon. I wouldn't be for trying to slur their reputation as a whole.

celticcrash wrote: »

There is no other organization who can come close to help so many alcoholics stay of the drink long term.

It would be impossible to do a proper study on AA, as most of its members
want to stay anonymous. AA does not keep any kind of record of who or how many people come to meetings.

sopretty wrote: »

nozzferrathoo - you will NEVER get statistics, names, performance results lol from AA. Ever.
First of all, there is the complete and utter anonymity of AA. This is what makes it so attractive to people.
You're looking at AA as if it was a regular scientific sort of reviewable group of therapists!
It's not!!! It's completely and utterly different. I don't get why you're trying to discredit AA. There is no money to be made out of AA. None. The reason psychologists/psychiatrists are not allowed into CLOSED meetings, is that 'the only requirement for membership is a DESIRE TO STOP DRINKING'.

This is the "sacred cow" mentality I referred to in my previous post. Anything which even suggests that AA might not work, or might not be brilliantly effective is leapt on and attacked for all sorts of various reasons.

Why are we not allowed to ask whether AA works? What is the problem with pausing for a second and asking, "Hey, should we be recommending AA to people"?

celticcrash claims that "There is no other organization who can come close to help so many alcoholics stay of the drink long term." and in the next breath says that there are no records. Eh, conflicting much?

How can anyone claim that AA has any benefit statistically if AA do not collect any statistics?

Why don't we let people just go to AA, if it works for them, what's the problem, right? Yeah, definitely.
The problem is when doctors and psychiatrists recommend AA as treatment, partially or entirely, then you're getting into the medical area, and damned if you need to be able to prove the effectiveness of a medical treatment before you can recommend it.

Would you be happy with a doctor recommending an alcoholic go see a witchdoctor or an homeopath to get treatment for their alcoholism?

No doubt that witchdoctors and homeopathy can and does work for some alcoholics. But that doesn't mean they're good recommendations to make.

That's all we're asking - does AA work?

There is no evidence that it does. There is no evidence that the number of AA members who stay off alcohol long-term is higher than the natural rate of abstinence for former alcoholics.
And if you can't prove that something works, doctors and psychiatrists should not be recommending it.

sopretty

seamus wrote: »

This is the "sacred cow" mentality I referred to in my previous post. Anything which even suggests that AA might not work, or might not be brilliantly effective is leapt on and attacked for all sorts of various reasons.

Why are we not allowed to ask whether AA works? What is the problem with pausing for a second and asking, "Hey, should we be recommending AA to people"?

celticcrash claims that "There is no other organization who can come close to help so many alcoholics stay of the drink long term." and in the next breath says that there are no records. Eh, conflicting much?

How can anyone claim that AA has any benefit statistically if AA do not collect any statistics?

Why don't we let people just go to AA, if it works for them, what's the problem, right? Yeah, definitely.
The problem is when doctors and psychiatrists recommend AA as treatment, partially or entirely, then you're getting into the medical area, and damned if you need to be able to prove the effectiveness of a medical treatment before you can recommend it.

Would you be happy with a doctor recommending an alcoholic go see a witchdoctor or an homeopath to get treatment for their alcoholism?

No doubt that witchdoctors and homeopathy can and does work for some alcoholics. But that doesn't mean they're good recommendations to make.

That's all we're asking - does AA work?

There is no evidence that it does. There is no evidence that the number of AA members who stay off alcohol long-term is higher than the natural rate of abstinence for former alcoholics.
And if you can't prove that something works, doctors and psychiatrists should not be recommending it.

Why don't you look at statistics from rehab centres as a starting point? They will have admission figures. They may not have figures on how long a 'patient' remained sober, but they will have figures on the % who dropped out.
You all seem to want facts and figures. The only fact available is that NO facts, figures, statistics will ever be made available by AA.
Even the rehab centres - how do you judge whether a person is still sober a year later or 5 years later? Is it the amount of aftercare meetings they've attended? Do you take their word for it? Do you look at their car to see if it's relatively new? Do you do liver function tests?
Why would any recovering alcoholic ever want to comply with any long-term study? It is A DAY AT A TIME. I personally would never want to satisfy some nosey parker's interest in my sobriety. It is a very personal and difficult journey . I am no statistic, nor do I wish to be.

celticcrash

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Do you have any figures to support this assertion?



There are anonymous methodologies to collate data. "Anonymous" is not an excuse to throw ones hands in the air and simply not try. We do it in medicine all the time.

Also given this lack of statistics.... on what grounds do you make a highly statistically based claim as the one above? You are in one breath telling us that statistics simply can not be complied, but in the breath before us telling us that no other organisation is statistically as good as AA. Which is it then? It can not be both.

Yes, 2 ears and 2 eyes. 67 meetings in Limerick alone. (in one week)
Now you tell me who or what comes close to that.
People on here who have first hand experience with AA meetings
have the goodness to come on here to try to explain what the meetings
are like.
You disregard and disrespect what we are saying, because you read ONE book. (one book)
It just shows that you are dogmatic in your narrow views.
I know some fanatical religious people who are more broad minded than you and thats coming from an atheist.

Ivaniayo

AA does not work in every case, no one is claiming that.
I know several people that were helped greatly by the AA when they were at their wits end and at complete rock bottom, and their families were very well supported by Al Anon. I also know people who did not find success battling their affliction this time round.
I for one am very glad that the AA exists.
Is every AA member, group facilitator and meeting absolutely perfect in every way conceivable ?
No, nothing in life works that way, and I certainly wouldn't be one for trying to slur the AA's reputation as a whole.
If anyone is in trouble I would not be discouraging them from trying the AA, no one there gives a shyte if you are atheist or theist, its about people helping people, not belief/non belief politics, were sick of hearing that elsewhere, we don't need it in the AA as well.

mathepac

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

And yet the same literature speaks against using other means of recovery in parallel such as professional psychotherapy. ...

Where in AA literature do you imagine you came across that gem of dis-information?

AA members are frequently invited into professionally run treatment centres and mental hospitals where doctors, including eminent psychiatrists, nurses and other health professionals see the contributions made by recovering AA members at these "open meetings" as vital to their clients' recovery.

AA locally and at a global level participates willingly, but only by invitation. They carry a message of hope and recovery and nothing else.

gaynorvader

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

{..}

I think your second last paragraph is both needless and insensitive considering the issue at hand. I'd think better of you if you were to remove it and put it down to a momentary lapse of judgement caused by the insults targeted at yourself.

celticcrash

67 meetings in Limerick each week. 67 meetings in Limerick each week.
67 meetings in Limerick each week. 67 meetings in Limerick each week.
67 meetings in Limerick each week. 67 meetings in Limerick each week.
67 meetings in Limerick each week. 67 meetings in Limerick each week.
67 meetings in Limerick each week. 67 meetings in Limerick each week.
67 meetings in Limerick each week. 67 meetings in Limerick each week.
67 meetings in Limerick each week. 67 meetings in Limerick each week.

We know AA works.
Theres people on here who are not satisfied with this number.
They want the scientists to come and measure the members soberity.
And maybe have the Government in there to regulate the unruly drunks.

Yes AA members are are sensitive and defensive about AA.
Knocking something that can save peoples lives is very dangerous.
Its playing with peoples lives.
So please dont knock something that we know saves peoples lives.

Waking-Dreams

I think all that has been asked for, as Seamus and others put it, is where’s the evidence that the number of AA members who stay off alcohol long-term are higher than the natural rate of abstinence for former alcoholics?

Those in favour of AA, and by the sounds of it with personal experience, have been unable to provide this information, even stating (and I’m paraphrasing here), ‘you will never get any such evidence because AA doesn’t collect that kind of data’.

Okay. So then all you’re left to determine its effectiveness is personal testimony, and the amount of meetings that are on, yes? This does not tell us anything about the natural rate of abstinence for former alcoholics. Stating there’s 67 meetings a week only tells us how popular AA is; it says nothing about it being better than other treatments or whether members would have quit without going to AA.

I think those who are struggling with this line of reasoning would find the area of Attribution Bias quite interesting to read up on.

mathepac

Waking-Dreams wrote: »

I think all that has been asked for, as Seamus and others put it, is where’s the evidence that the number of AA members who stay off alcohol long-term are higher than the natural rate of abstinence for former alcoholics? ... .

If that's what you think, maybe you need to read the thread title, the OP and re-read some of the posts again.

If that was the real topic for discussion why is the thread title A.A(Alcoholics Anonymous) meetings religious? . The question asked has been answered several times by referring to AA literature (the response to this was that both AA and its literature tell lies )

The real issue here is not whether AA is effective or not but whether despite its effectiveness / ineffectiveness, how dare anyone dispute the accusations of perceived religiosity.

sopretty

I suppose to answer the OP's question, I could say that the amount of people who follow religion in AA is completely typical of any cross-section of current Irish society.
It's a bit like asking, are all alcoholics unemployed school drop-outs?
Again, the answer would be typical of all cross-sections of society.
You have the long term unemployed, the recently unemployed, solicitors, doctors, nurses, accountants, secretaries, builders, labourers, post-men, sports-people, barmen, bar-women, guards, priests, teachers, architects, businessmen, politicians, musicians, singer, housewives etc.
Alcoholism doesn't discriminate against any of us.
AA is a complete and utter cross section of society with members who have one common link - they are alcoholics.

sopretty

Waking-Dreams wrote: »

I think all that has been asked for, as Seamus and others put it, is where’s the evidence that the number of AA members who stay off alcohol long-term are higher than the natural rate of abstinence for former alcoholics?

Those in favour of AA, and by the sounds of it with personal experience, have been unable to provide this information, even stating (and I’m paraphrasing here), ‘you will never get any such evidence because AA doesn’t collect that kind of data’.

Okay. So then all you’re left to determine its effectiveness is personal testimony, and the amount of meetings that are on, yes? This does not tell us anything about the natural rate of abstinence for former alcoholics. Stating there’s 67 meetings a week only tells us how popular AA is; it says nothing about it being better than other treatments or whether members would have quit without going to AA.

I think those who are struggling with this line of reasoning would find the area of Attribution Bias quite interesting to read up on.

Why are you so interested in statistics? Go to the CADS, the addiction psychiatrists, the rehab facilities! They will have statistics for you!
The thing about AA is that when you're a raging alcoholic, maybe still holding down a good job, maybe still holding high regard in your community, with children and perhaps a husband whose own reputation depends on yours, the anonymity of AA is the critical thing to initially appeal to you.
When you attend any of the 'professional services', it is documented.
When you attend AA it is not! There is no record, no signing in, no obligation to attend, nothing. AA is just a bunch of recovered or recovering alcoholics who help each other along.
It is not a medical, religious, political or any other sort of organisation.
It is quite literally, a bunch of sober, hopefully recovered ex-drunks! You can't underestimate the comraderie/companionship/feeling at home/feeling understood, that an alcoholic can achieve at a meeting and by chatting with other AA members.
I have told AA members things I wouldn't even tell a priest in a confession box!
There's just an indescribable connection with members, where it's like you're all holding onto each other in order to survive.
It's not medical or otherwise. It will never provide statistics for the simple reason that it's not really measurable.

mathepac

sopretty wrote: »

... Go to the CADS, the addiction psychiatrists, the rehab facilities! They will have statistics for you! ...

You make a very good point!!

The HRB gathers, collates, massages and disseminates statistical information about health-related matters in Ireland, including all residential alcohol and drug treatment centres, out-patient centres, after-care facilities, detox locations, mental health hospitals and community initiatives. These various services offer treatments that are both 12-step based as well as treatments based on other modalities.

The HRB is the obvious place to ask questions on the success rates of the various treatments available for alcohol, drug, gambling and other dependencies. The health insurers would be another rich source of stats as they fund alcohol drug and other treatments in residential centres that use the 12-step, "Minnesota Model" or other.

Addition: I just noticed on the HRB website the drug-related deaths continue to climb (2010 & 2011, the latest published figures as of 24/01/2014 !!!) while the HSEs continue to pump money into their personality-led "drug and alcohol education programmes".

http://www.hrb.ie/about/in-the-news/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=494&tx_ttnews[backPid]=19&cHash=787f3bd9c9d10d5cc6665a514292cadf

Brian Shanahan

sopretty wrote: »

<snip>

How do you reconcile that with the fact that under the latest figures available from the AA (1989, you have to wonder about an organisation which doesn't publish success figures for 25 years) show a success rate of 5%, a figure that is no better than a person going cold turkey with no other help?

How do AA do any good when you've exact same chance of quitting by staying at home on meeting nights?

Brian Shanahan

mathepac wrote: »

<snip>

Mathepac, how do you reconcile your not very polite ranting against us evidence based people with the fact that even on their own figure (vastly out of date as they are) the AA are no good?

Brian Shanahan

sopretty wrote: »

Ah here - this has gone beyond ridiculous at this stage! Good luck!

It went beyond ridiculous when you started making the baseless claims about AA and Mathepac went on the highly offensive rants about those who didn't bow and scrape in front of gilded altar of AA. Not when the likes of nozz started showing how ridiculously bad AA are.

sopretty

Brian Shanahan wrote: »

It went beyond ridiculous when you started making the baseless claims about AA and Mathepac went on the highly offensive rants about those who didn't bow and scrape in front of gilded altar of AA. Not when the likes of nozz started showing how ridiculously bad AA are.

If you could provide me with any other solution to alcoholism, I would clutch at it. Please please provide me with a solution.

sopretty

It is also worth noting that a lot of suicides are by alcoholics (anecdotally of course). I've been diagnosed as being alcohol dependent. That's nice.

Waking-Dreams

This argument from others has come up a few times now: "It will never provide statistics for the simple reason that it's not really measurable".

And yet there are several posters here more than happy to make statements about its effectiveness based on… a measurement. After all, where are they getting the notion that it works if they’re not measuring it somehow?

So, it’s measurable when people want to claim it works but the moment anyone questions whether AA is more effective than, say, doing nothing or some other treatment, we’re told ‘it’s not really measurable’?

This game of placing AA behind a protective shield where it can’t be fairly scrutinised is the kind of thing you encounter when it comes to lots of ineffective treatments. You hear it all the time in quack medicine. Statements like: “It works because I know it works” only demonstrates that some people believe what they want to believe. And, I personally think that kind of skewed thinking is probably more powerful than any substance addiction.

Look, people change because something in them makes a decision to change. Could be months or years before that days comes. The person might attribute the change to an outside force or whatever, but deep down they can never know for sure whether they would have got there without that outside influence. Because, if you think about it, you can’t splice your existence in two and choose different paths at the same time for the sake of a comparison.

For example, people might take alternative medicines and then claim their ailment got better. But by taking the medicines they then never got to test out whether taking nothing at all would have produced the exact same result at that moment in time.

But that’s the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy for you.

mathepac

Brian Shanahan wrote: »

Mathepac, how do you reconcile your not very polite ranting against us evidence based people with the fact that even on their own figure (vastly out of date as they are) the AA are no good?

I have no problem being accused of ranting against posts I see as pure drivel about the perceived religiosity of AA / 12-step programmes.

What evidence (numbers/stats/figures/etc) have you produced about the effectiveness of any alternatives to 12-step treatment for substance dependency?

That would be none then.

BTW just for accuracy's sake, "the AA" fix cars, talk to Conor Faughnan.

mathepac

Waking-Dreams wrote: »

This argument has come up a few times now: It will never provide statistics for the simple reason that it's not really measurable... .

What I said was that a voluntary organisation that wasn't set up to gather and analyse data can't be accused of ineffectiveness because it doesn't gather and analyse data. It's rather like saying the HSE is ineffective because it doesn't feed enough horses.

mathepac

Brian Shanahan wrote: »

It went beyond ridiculous when ... Mathepac went on the highly offensive rants ....

If you find my posts offensive report me to the mods and point out who apart from yourself could possibly be offended by anything I posted.

Unlike other posts / posters in the thread I confined my comments to post content and not individual posters.

Brian Shanahan wrote: »

... Not when the likes of nozz started showing how ridiculously bad AA are.

Whoever s/he is, s/he / they (and other posters) have failed to show anything of the kind, quite the reverse in point of fact.

Waking-Dreams

mathepac wrote: »

What I said was that a voluntary organisation that wasn't set up to gather and analyse data can't be accused of ineffectiveness because it doesn't gather and analyse data. It's rather like saying the HSE is ineffective because it doesn't feed enough horses.

If it can’t be accused of ineffectiveness by measurement then, by the same token, it can’t be accused of effectiveness either (yet that’s what people are doing) because, as you say, it doesn’t gather and analyse data.

Bit of a self-contradicting argument put forward there.

sopretty

I've read over the more recent posts on this thread and it seems to have taken a change in focus.
The initial query was whether AA was religious. I've put forward my opinion on that.
Two other queries seem to have evolved out of the discussion since:
A) Does AA work better than non-attendance at AA?
Why can't we get statistics on the efficacy of AA?

My personal answer to A, is that I have no idea, for the simple reason that question B exists!

But in answer to B, I'll try to explain it a bit more:

First of all, if anyone is genuinely concerned or interested, I would suggest they email/otherwise contact AA's central office - I'm sure the contact details are on the website.
That said, you're talking about an extremely complex issue here. You're not talking about something which can even be definitively diagnosed for a start! As I said, my 'diagnosis' is that I am 'alcohol dependent'.
So - you have the issue first of all with defining and diagnosing alcoholism. Is the functioning PAYE-paying worker who drinks a bottle or sometimes more of wine a night an alcoholic? Is the fella who goes without drink Monday to Thursday and then drinks solidly from 5pm on Friday to 10pm Sunday night an alcoholic? Is the 'layabout' who drinks solidly all day long, 7 days a week, actually just a layabout, or are they alcoholic? What about the fella who stays off it for weeks and then goes on a bender for a whole week? Is he an alcoholic? The mother who keeps herself slightly topped up all day long, but never becomes visibly drunk - is she an alcoholic? How do you define it?
AA doesn't really distinguish between the above dudes/dudettes. As I've stated before on the thread, the only requirement for membership is a DESIRE TO STOP DRINKING.
AA literature, in its chapter There is a Solution, goes some way to try to find/define a difference between moderate drinkers/heavy drinkers/alcoholics. I'd also recommend reading the chapter More about Alcoholism.
AA literature also states that while there is no way to definitively say (I sound like the garda ombudsman here lol) whether you are or are not an alcoholic, that you can get a fair idea by simply going to a bar, starting to drink and seeing whether you can easily stop after one or two drinks.
I do not know how psychiatrists or therapists measure or define alcoholism, but I suppose they treat all levels of alcohol dependence similarly (pretty much the same as AA!).

Now this is where the real difficulty lies!! You see, if you're not a pure and utter raging alcoholic, any treatment you undergo will likely be much more effective than anything undertook by the pure and utter alcoholic.
So, while you may have a man or woman who drank daily, but then got a health scare, while they might be dependent, but not addicted, they will not suffer much ill effects (mentally) by quitting completely.
A pure and utter alcoholic on the other hand will not, even with the best of intentions and therapies (only from personal experience!) be even remotely content on quitting. They are frequently 'restless, irritable and discontented'. What we'd call a 'dry drunk'. They can become depressed and even suicidal.

So - how do you measure the efficacy of a treatment when you can't really distinguish between what might be a control group (random cross-section of society), a bunch of alcohol dependent people and a bunch of pure and utter pathological alcoholics?

If the medics would begin to definitively define 'alcoholism', then that would be a start!

Hope this post has made some sense. Hard to adequately express what I'm thinking!

sopretty

Also - just to add - there are two more questions!

What time limit do you set while measuring the efficacy of a treatment? 3 months? 1 year? 2 years? 5 years? Till death do us part?

and.....

How do you measure the quality of the recovery? If a fella hasn't touched a drop in 7 years, but has attempted suicide 3 times during that period, is that treatment/lack of treatment, to be considered effective?
Or, if you've a woman who gave it up because social workers were on her case, who is now addicted to valium, is she considered recovered? Was her treatment/lack of treatment effective?
What about the fella who is happy as Larry for three months and who then goes on a massive bender and ends up in jail for being drunk and disorderly, was his treatment or lack of it effective?

These are just some of the reasons why I am stating that recovery rates through various treatments isn't really measurable.

Brian Shanahan

sopretty wrote: »

If you could provide me with any other solution to alcoholism, I would clutch at it. Please please provide me with a solution.

Standing on your head reciting the US constitution backwards is as good a solution as the AA given the numbers.

But if you want a proper solution go to a psychiatrist (sp?) who has expertise in the area. Ask your GP.