What Do You Think of Alcoholics Anonymous?!


Question: What Do You Think of Alcoholics Anonymous.?
The new guy that I am seeing describes himself as a "recovering alcoholic." He goes to AA meetings everyday. I went to a couple meetings with him and the people seemed incredibly weird. They were so depressing. It felt like "Hey let's all dredge up the absolute most depressing moments about our lives and ruminate about them over and over again."

They do "drunkalogues" where they go over in vivid details the last time they became intoxicated.

What do you think.? Health Question & Answer


Answers:
The people there go on that they are "spiritual not religious" while talking about God and praying. That was my first clue there was something wrong.

I had a problem with alcohol, went to 10 day hospital detox in '82. While there, the hospital staff and my doctor convinced me that I needed to follow it up with a 30 day rehab. The hospital stay wiped me out financially, I went into debt for the rehab which consisted of AA members trying to explain how although I must quit being an atheist and start believing in their god, pray with them, how only God can remove my desire to drink, it is not religious. I thought they were going to teach me some coping skills, not prayers.

I did pick up that I was powerless, that I had a disease and that my drinking was genetic; great excuses to go back to drinking. I had learned that people cannot quit drinking on their own and must attend AA in order to stay stopped. I also learned that sitting in meetings listening to a bunch of bull hockey and being told that I MUST start believing in everything these people said or die depressed me further.

I was told that my choices were 1) to die, 2) to drink which would be to die slower, or 3) believe exactly as they believed. I found I couldn't do #3, I thought long and hard about #1, but had seen how they talked about suicides in the rooms, and there were several. I'd later find out that AA has a 3% mortality rate, six times higher than for people who attempt quitting without AA. Part of it is due to the large, vocal anti-medication/anti-therapy faction of AA who tell people that if they take their prescribed psych meds, they're not really sober.

"At least he died sober" or "He just couldn't get this simple program", not a word about the torment the person must have been goin through. They used those suicides as recruiting tools, "couldn't get AA, killed himself". I found that especially sick and didn't want anything to do with these people. So I picked #2, went back to drinking, even though part of me wanted to quit. AA convinced me I couldn't do it without them and I refused to be one of them.

Problem for me was, I had been diagnosed with depression BEFORE I started drinking. People kept telling me that the depression would magically go away once I quit drinking, but it didn't, it got worse, much worse. I kept getting told that I needed to be sober for a few months before I could be treated for depression. A few months would go by and the shrink or therapist would want an additional few months. Meanwhile, I was hanging on by a thread.

Shrinks and counselors dismissed the depression as part of the withdrawal from alcohol and no matter how hard I tried to explain it to them rationally, everyone who believed in AA didn't want to hear it. AA members dismissed it as being on the pity pot.

People kept telling me that I must have gotten it wrong, AA admits atheists, they can help anyone. I found out members will tell you anything to get you in the doors, but once you're there you are expected to conform.

Some people call it a cult, that members are brainwashed; some AA members brag that their brains needed a good washing.

AA was getting more than half of all new members via the courts, government agencies, and employee assistance programs. So many people complained about the things I described here that several courts took a look at what was going on. Every time a case has come before a higher court, the ultimate outcome has been that AA is at least "religious in nature" and that mandated attendance is a violation of the Establishment Clause.

AA might have gotten away with it IF IT WORKED BUT IT DOESN'T.

Here are the results of some major studies:
1) Dr. Brandsma found that A.A. increased the rate of binge drinking, and
2) Dr. Ditman found that A.A. increased the rate of rearrests for public drunkenness, and
3) Dr. Walsh found that "free A.A." made later hospitalization more expensive, and
4) Doctors Orford and Edwards found that having a doctor talk to the patient for just one hour was just as effective as a whole year of A.A.-based treatment.
5) Dr. George E. Vaillant, the A.A. Trustee, found that A.A. treatment was completely ineffective, and raised the death rate in alcoholics. No other way of treating alcoholics produced such a high death rate as did Alcoholics Anonymous.
1) http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-effe...
2) http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-effe...
3) http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-effe...
4) http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-effe...
5) http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-effe...

There are no scientific studies that show that AA works any better than no treatment at all.

Illegal Even If It Did Work
http://www.positiveatheism.org/mail/eml9...

The Effectiveness of the Twelve-Step Treatment
http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-effe...

Why the 12-sHealth Question & Answer

Likely one reason it seems depressing etc to you is that you are not or were not ever an addict or alcoholic. Thats why AA and NA exist. Only addicts, former addicts, recovering addicts get other addicts former and recovering addicts and what they need to say hear do work on.

If hes not drinking than it must be working for him. Be supportive unless you want to be single or find out what its like to be with an active alcoholic. When it comes to addiction whatever keeps you clean you keep doing it. And for him it seems AA works. Drunkalogues and all. Hes sober so its doing something for him.

You are not required to go to AA with him to be supportive of him in his efforts to stay sober and stay in AA. Just don't knock it to him. Be understanding about the time it takes for him to do what he does there and the ties he has to the people in the program. Alanon is helpful for non alcoholics involved with those in AA and recovery to help you understand why he finds AA helpful and how to better relate to this aspect of his life. But even that is not required. All that is, is that you do not in anyway minimize criticize or knock what he needs to do to stay clean and you make room for all the time that his association with AA takes in his life without guilt trips complaining etc.

AA wasnt my thing eaither. But its worked for many. And its worked for my significant other. So I support his need for and use of the program.Health Question & Answer

I think the whole program is part brainwashing, but it does help some people. If it's helping him, it's great, if it's not, then you should be wary of it. All of the 12-step programs are really sketchy like that. They essentially don't help fighting the addiction or necessity, but teaching people to suppress it. I've never been addicted or in a 12-step program, but from what I've seen, it has the potential to do nothing, or to get a person not addicted to whatever anymore, but at a risk.Health Question & Answer

i think its all a bit weird id rather just get drunk (saves time) Health Question & Answer



The consumer health information on youqa.cn is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for medical advice or treatment for any medical conditions.
The answer content post by the user, if contains the copyright content please contact us, we will immediately remove it.
Copyright © 2007-2012 YouQA.cn -   Terms of Use -   Contact us

Health Q&A Resources