There's no telling how many people would have relapsed- you make that statement yourself a few pages back:
What I am talking about is would you have got sober without AA's help? You don't know the answer to this because you can't predict alternative fates to the one which actually occured.
That line of reasoning works both ways.
So how's your campaign against AA going? I still attend meetings, and am still sober. I still see hardcore alcs coming in and getting help.
I heard a story a while back about an AA group a friend visited in the midwest where they cirumvented the system and replaced "higher power" with "Jesus Christ our lord and savior". She mentioned that it was a bit against AA policies and counterproductive and they told her she was cross talking and causing a scene. Now that kind of stuff seems a little cultish, but the blatant stuff like that is few and far between (at least where I am, and in most groups in big cities.) The god stuff(I assume that's about 75% of what people are really griping about when they gripe about AA) happens on a much more personal level, for the most part- though the group is designed in such a way that it's easy to let someone pull the god stuff on agnostics/atheists and it's uncomfortable to tell them to pipe down with their personal views on religion.
The success rate? Alcoholics as a group have a crap success rate. Addicts are the most self destructive group you'll ever run across. Blaming any method for not being able to help alcoholics with alcoholism is like complaining that 9 out of ten people who jumped in front of moving cars got run over. It is a foregone conclusion that alcoholics relapse. My experience is that some alcoholics who attend AA and work the steps get sober. Some attend AA and learn to hate it get sober. Some attend AA and work the steps and relapse. Some hate it and quit and relapse. Some Alcs go to other groups and succeed, some go to other groups and fail. The common factor there is the alcoholic- not the groups or methods. You tie twenty alcoholics to trees alone on islands in the middle of the Pacific and you'll find they start doing a lot of the same stuff- idiosyncratic stuff that most alcoholics do.
The twelve step program- the first half of the first step is about alcohol- the rest is about improving yourself. It's a form of therapy- self improvement. It was made at a time when Christianity was pretty much the only game in town, and so the religion "loopholes" tend to screw things up for modern day agnostics and atheists- but that's pretty easy to get around if you're realistic and want to succeed at it. The big book plainly states that it isn't the only way- it's just a way. It also creates a loophole for atheists and agnostics (which unfortunately a lot of Christians like to exploit in their own favor, in my experience- but that's another rant entirely.
To wrap up my opinions- I like Stephen Jrees. We need people in the world calling us on our bullsh!t and making us question our motives and the principles we live by that we assume are true. AA is a really good program for people who are constitutionally incapable of living without a strict regimen. Even if they (might be- I stress this as it's pretty subject to interpretation) coerced into a certain religion- so what? If I had to choose between being filthy and drunk in the gutter, dieing from the slowest form of suicide or blank faced reciting a memorized script that is supposed to be "spirituality"- it would be a hard choice. I've been a bad drunk, and nowhere near as bad as any of the late stage alcoholics I see in my day to day wanderings through the AA system. I actually stay in the system in large part because I feel it needsw people like me to temper the actions of people who abuse the system (inadvertantly or on purpose) and I feel there are drunks out there who come into AA who benefit from my presence there (as a recovering alcoholic, a person offering help and just someone real and down to earth who they might be able to identify with.)
Keep up the good fight, Stephenjrees. We're depending on you.
Cheers- Toby
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Toby_gibson002
16 years ago
Oh yeah (that's me up above accidentally signed in on an old account)- the best way to beat anyone is from the inside. I don't like some aspects of AA, so I stick around and "be" the change. I don't do that with everything- if I did my life would be tedious and horrible. But with AA I feel it is important. Whatever the original intent of AA's founders, it has morphed into something that has the potential to be very cool, if people stay realistic and are responsible for their own actions.
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Urbantorreador
16 years ago
Where the heck is Stephene JRhees? Remember, Stephen- Winners never quit and quitters never win!!
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g_ann
14 years ago
Interesting that someone is so adamant that 12 step programs don't work; it's the flip side of those who claim they are the ONLY way.
I marked my 28th sobriety anniversary two days ago. If alcohol was my gateway drug, then AA was my gateway to sanity.
At the risk of offending the AA-doesn't-work camp, I don't think I could have done it another way. AA's philosophy and methods are compatible with mine. Of course, I have no way to determine if another method would have worked as well.
Now to be an equal-opportunity offender: I do not believe AA is the only way. After nine years of sobriety, I stopped attending meetings. I'd developed other friendships that offered more comprehensive support than my relatively narrow-focused AA friendships did.
That said, I liked the movie. (I just watched it all the way through today for the first time, which prompted my coming here.) I give it 2-1/2 stars. Good performances (I like Sandra Bullock, Viggo Mortensen, and Steve Buscemi), good character development, and simple but rewarding plot.
I just wonder why the OP has so much contempt for AA. I admit some members are zealous and in-your-face, but if you're on firm ground, you walk away. What are they going to do, beat you into submission?
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