27 years biatch

[z31maniac]

"Later in the decade, research by Kaye Fillmore, Ph.D., of the University of California, San Francisco, found that from 60 to 80 percent of problem drinkers stopped abusing alcohol, usually without treatment."

You must be a great PR person as well. That statement merely says that 60-80 percent of people stopped abusing alcohol, NOT that 60-80 percent of those who stopped abusing did it without treatment.

[rwh11385]

If I knew more about how to dig up good statistics, I would find out how many people who were once cited for DUI (meaning they HAD to do some kind of treatment) ended up dead, due to alcohol, either cirrhosis (or other alcohol related medical issues), fatal drunk driving (or how many others did they kill).

Maybe some smart college graduate could find some statistics to go with that.

Well, if you don't know how, then leave it to a professional...

A controlled study of the effectiveness of Alcoholics Anonymous was conducted in San Diego in the mid-nineteen-sixties. It is described in "A Controlled Experiment on the Use of Court Probation for Drunk Arrests", by Keith S. Ditman, M.D., George C. Crawford, LL.B., Edward W. Forgy, Ph.D., Herbert Moskowitz, Ph.D., and Craig MacAndrew, Ph.D., in the American Journal of Psychiatry.1

In the study, 301 public drunkenness offenders were sentenced by the court to one of three "treatment programs". The offenders were randomly divided into three groups:

* a control group that got no treatment at all,
* a second group that was sent to a professional alcoholism treatment clinic,
* and a third group that was sent to Alcoholics Anonymous.

All of the subjects were followed for at least a full year following conviction. Surprisingly, the no-treatment group did the best, and Alcoholics Anonymous did the worst, far worse than simply receiving no treatment at all. When the rates of re-arrest for public drunkenness were calculated, the following results were obtained:

Number of Rearrests Among 241 Offenders in Three Treatment Groups
Treatment Group NO re-as Re-a Once Re-a 2 or more Total
No treatment 32 (44%) 14 (19%) 27 (37%) 73
Professional clinic 26 (32%) 23 (28%) 33 (40%) 82
Alcoholics Anonymous 27 (31%) 19 (22%) 40 (47%) 86


Kind of convenient they don't keep tabs so no one could find out their [lack of] success rate.

In every category, the people who got no treatment at all fared better than the people who got A.A. "treatment". Based on the records of re-arrests, only 31% of the A.A.-treated clients were deemed successful, while 44% of the "untreated" clients were successful. Clearly, Alcoholics Anonymous "treatment" had a detrimental effect. That means that A.A. had a success rate of less than zero. ...

And the A.A. people got rearrested more often after many months of A.A. training -- not in the beginning. The rate of rearrests was the same for the no-treatment and A.A. groups during the first month of treatment (22%), but the A.A. group's rearrest rate increased later, after months of A.A. indoctrination.

A 1999 study of Texas' correctional substance abuse treatment programs found that those who participated in an in-prison [Twelve-Step] program had the same recidivism rates as non-participants. Although those who completed the program did better than untreated offenders, those who entered but did not complete the program did worse. Moreover, probationers enrolled in treatment in Texas had an overall higher recidivism rate than non-participants.

Another study also had 29% death rate for AA members after 8 years.

The A.A.-treated group, the "Clinic sample", with the death rate of 29%, had the highest death rate of any kind of program, significantly higher than all of the other programs.

Compare that to the Dupont study of its employees and death rates: Known alcoholics 3.2% per year
Recovered alcoholics 2.5% per year
Suspected alcoholics 1.8% per year
Non-alcoholics 0.74 to 0.86% per year

8 years of all known alcoholics is still lower than the study of AA effectiveness!!

about 5% remain in AA as long as a year, according to AA's own surveys.

The two randomized studies in which AA treatment was assigned found AA to yield worse outcomes than other forms of treatment — or no treatment at all. (See Brandsma et al., The Outpatient Treatment of Alcoholism: A Review and Comparative Study, Baltimore: University Park Press, 1980; Ditman et al., "A controlled study on the use of court probation for drunk arrests," American Journal of Psychiatry, 124:160-163, 1967.) But Walsh et al. ("A randomized trial of treatment options for alcohol-abusing workers," The New England Journal of Medicine, 325:775-782, 1991) allowed alcoholics limited choices, and those who chose AA still did worst (about as bad as those assigned to AA).

perhaps part of the problem:

Finally, AA has introduced a strong degree of irrationality, intolerance and hatred into the alcoholism field. AA attendees, who dominate treatment in the United States (more so than anywhere else in the world) as a group do not accept alternative treatments, alternative goals (such as moderation), and alternative providers (those without AA backgrounds). Even today, their role in alcoholism treatment is repressive and totalitarian, and continues to retard progress in dealing with alcoholism in an effective, sensible way that respects the freedom and conscience of the individual.

rated only those studies that had randomly assigned alcoholics to at least one comparison group in addition to the treatment being evaluated. A total of 219 studies met the criteria.

Forty-three treatments were ranked, although 13 of them had too few studies to be definitively rated. Brief interventions had the highest score, followed by social skills training. At the bottom of the list in effectiveness were general alcoholism counseling and educational lectures and films about alcoholism. AA received the lowest score among the 13 treatments inadequately tested. Miller et al. were quick to note that the treatments with the worst clinical records are almost universally the ones used by American alcoholism programs.


Table 3. Most and Least Effective Alcoholism Treatments
Highest Rated
Brief interventions +239
Social skills training +128
Motivation enhancement +87
Community reinforcement +80
Behavioral contracting +73

Lowest Rated
Metronidazole - 102
Relaxation training - 109
Confrontational counseling - 125
Psychotherapy - 127
General alcohol counseling - 214
Alcoholism education programs - 239

Methods with Too Few Tests to be Reliably Rated
Sensory deprivation +40
Developmental counseling +28
Acupuncture +20
...... ...
Calcium Carbamide - 32
Antipsychotic medication - 36
AA - 52

Source: Miller, W.R., Brown, J.M., Simpson, T.L., Handmaker, N.S., Bien, T.H., Luckie, L.F., Montgomery, H.A., Hester, R.K., and Tonigan, J.S. (1995). What works?: A methodological analysis of the alcohol treatment outcome literature. In R.K. Hester and W.R. Miller (Eds.), Handbook of alcoholism treatment approaches (2nd Ed., pp. 12-44).

Moreover, Orford and Heather have shown that people's response to treatment depends more on how they think about themselves than on the severity of their actual symptoms. For example, people who believe they can drink moderately are more likely to actually succeed at controlling their drinking, contrary to AA's denial theory.

My "had a drink and I was okay sharing" was not met with a enthusiasm by my fellow A.A. friends

I am 45 years of age and have spent the last 15 years both drink and drug free. From the age of perhaps 20 I was a drug user up until my 30th birthday when I entered a twelve step program...

My problem now is, six months ago I had a drink. I was surprised that I was able to use alcohol in moderation over a three day holiday. I was even more surprised that I was not compelled to drink to drunkenness, indeed my total consumption was six drinks over 3 days. As you know this outcome is contrary to what A.A. informed me would happen if I drank again. However when I returned home I was fearful of returning to the way it was (notwithstanding my holiday experience) and promptly returned to A.A.

The drinking experience had a profound effect on me in the sense that I began to question things in general. My "had a drink and I was okay" sharing was not met with a enthusiasm by my fellow A.A. friends. Indeed I felt alienated because I wasn't returning with the horror story they needed to hear to sustain their beliefs. I became aware that I no longer pocessed the degree of helplessness I needed to be a qualifying member.

Every disease has a spontaneous remission rate. The rate for the common cold is basically 100 percent -- almost nobody ever dies just from a cold. On the other hand, diseases like cancer and Ebola have very low spontaneous remission rates -- left untreated, they are very deadly and few people recover from them. Alcoholism is in the middle. The Harvard Medical School reported that in the long run, the rate of spontaneous remission in alcoholics is slightly over 50 percent. That means that the annual rate of spontaneous remission is around 5 percent.

- Treatment of Drug Abuse and Addiction -- Part III, The Harvard Mental Health Letter, Volume 12, Number 4, October 1995, page 3.
(See Aug. (Part I), Sept. (Part II), Oct. 1995 (Part III).)

[rwh11385]

If you want to quit drinking, AA is the ONLY proven place to go.

What "proof" do you have besides the few people you know that are still around. What % do they represent of all who have ever entered the program where you go? How many people died from alcohol while in AA, or from suicide?

I can tell you this: The statistics are very against anyone attempting to get sober. Few make it past their first week. Fewer still make it past their first month...and so on...very few make it past their first year, much less decade.

Studies of alcohol abusers in community settings show that they frequently outgrow their drinking problems on their own. Psychiatrist George Vaillant was part of a Harvard study that followed a group of men for four decades, beginning in adolescence. In his 1983 book The Natural History of Alcoholism, Dr. Vaillant reported that over 60 percent of those who overcame their alcoholism didn't enter any kind of treatment, including AA.

Later in the decade, research by Kaye Fillmore, Ph.D., of the University of California, San Francisco, found that from 60 to 80 percent of problem drinkers stopped abusing alcohol, usually without treatment.

Statistically speaking, consider the enormous numbers of people who have tried AA, first to "dry out" and then tried "moderation" and then "dropped out" of AA...the evidence is clear..."problem drinkers" do NOT respond well to "moderation".

Numbers? or are you just talking out of your ass...?

When you are at an A.A. meeting, you are in a self-selecting group.

* A bunch of people went to a Baptist church for years.
* During those years, many of the women got pregnant and had babies.
* That proves it: Going to Baptist churches causes women to get pregnant and have babies.

Not!

That goofy logic is the same logic as A.A. uses to insist that it's a proven fact that going to A.A. meetings and doing the Twelve Steps causes people to quit drinking.

Many A.A. members are confusing causation with correlation, or causation with coincidence. They fail to see that they go to A.A. meetings because they want to quit drinking, not that they want to quit drinking because they go to A.A. meetings.

Luke, you try to use your selection-biased group to rationalize AA working but it also creates invalid circular logic:

1. Someone will be counted as an A.A. member only if he quits drinking and stays sober.
2. A.A. obviously works great, because so many of its members are sober.

[s0urce]

s0urce, your arrogant ass can join him. You guys can be recreational users together.

Oh boo fucking hoo. INTERNETS

[CleanAzzE30z]

This kind of argument always gets me. I must remove myself. Plus Im too lazy to type out everything I think. When addiction hits you personally and you have to intimately deal with it (not just judging your alky uncle, but living with him), then you will understand better. Its easy to label everything a weakness, it absolves you of any guilt in having to help do something to help these people.



But I lol'd @ "r3vs own Rick James" hahahahhaa



Mariano

[blunttech]

whats really funny is not once did i sing the praises of AA or treatment. i just stated what i did and the process i went thru to get straight. i really dislike the treatment mentality and i would suck heeters dick before i went to see any kind of counselor. on the other hand i bet heeter would suck my dick on the way to see his counselor.

[joshh]

I will toast to that...

LMAO.....Smart ass!

[atomic]

Let's focus here people. This is about Blunt and whatever did work for him. Whether you believe in any system or not. Someone off of drugs and or alcohol is a good thing.

If someone is likely to get back on drugs or alcohol and all they can do is to never drink or do the drug again, so be it. If it works, it works.

I will toast to that...

[joshh]

Let's focus here people. This is about Blunt and whatever did work for him. Whether you believe in any system or not. Someone off of drugs and or alcohol is a good thing.

If someone is likely to get back on drugs or alcohol and all they can do is to never drink or do the drug again, so be it. If it works, it works.

[BimmerTom]

Heeter obviously hasn't mastered step one.

[DCColegrove]

Yes, Wow out of control thread.

You would never find me defending the people of "Alcoholics Anonymous" (like every place else more than half of them are idiots and probably less than half are actually alcoholic).

However I have been sober longer than I drank mostly due to the book Alcoholics Anonymous and the principals set forth in the book

I go to meetings still mostly for entertainment and on occasion to call some asshole on thier shit in hopes they won't send any new people out to thier death.

The overall point of the "Steps" is:

Grow up.

Take responsibility for your shit.

Go help someone (because it's the right thing to do you selfish little bastard).

Oddly, it works very well...Idiots and all...including me.

[StereoInstaller1]

Maybe it's the religious aspect of it, or just their attitude about how people "like me" should behave, and if I don't then I'm a bad person and I'm going to end up dead or in jail.

AA is very specific in NOT having "religious" intent. AA is a spiritual program, very specifically NOT religious.

In fact, that was one of the biggest arguments when the first AA book was being written, primarily by two guys, one who was religious, one who was not.

The non-religious view won.

AA does not judge, does not condone any guilt, or any other condemning attitude...it is not tolerated.

The only thing AA does not tolerate is intolerance.

In fact, if Heeter were to show up at an AA meeting, announce himself as a visitor (no one is required to announce themselves as anything, it is purely voluntary) and proceed to call us all losers, weak and unable to have the willpower to handle drugs and alcohol in moderation, I can tell you EXACTLY what they would tell him...


The entire group would tell him to "keep coming back".


Luke

[blunttech]

I don't think anyone is on blunt's sack I think we are mostly sick of heeter's shit.

dont mind rig. he normally has a prominent spot with his nose plastered on my grundle while my ballsack does a little mexican hatdance on his forehead and i think he misses that

[expressfish]

good for you blunt !! When its got you down and low...really low, to start using needles and such, I guesss you gotta get help. Good for you back in the day. Beer on the other hand is different story, at least in my own opinion. I'll drink a cold one for ya, when Im working on my eta tonight---cheers !

[parkerbink]

Hey you guys, move over- there's just not enough room for all of us on Blunt's sack!!!!;)

I don't think anyone is on blunt's sack I think we are mostly sick of heeter's shit.