How Successful is AA ??

[marietta]

Anyone with a desire to stop drinking can come into any AA meeting. Success for the individual depends on honesty, open-mindedness and willingness to follow the suggested steps which make up this unique program of recovery. If a person fails it is not through a deficiency or exclusion or oversight of AA. If a person succeeds it is because he or she finds enough humility to work the program. There is no reason to try to tally up the success rate of AA. It simply is there for anyone who needs it. It does not need to advertise or convince or manipulate. It is not a dating service. Simply finding a Higher Power, or new friends, or a babysitter is not an appreciation of the power of AA. And AA certainly has no business converting anyone to theism. For 100,000 drunks who try AA, there are 100,000 roads to success or failure. It's an individual matter.

I agree, we should extend the hand of AA to anyone suffering from this progressive, chronic and fatal disease. We can follow the suggestions in the Big Book with regard to what to share with this person and how to share it. But we cannot fix them. If it were that simple there would be no such thing as a drunk.

Nobody is cooking the books on the statistics of AA success. I measure the success of the Program by the fact that I'm still breathing. It's that simple. And if someone should ask me if AA works, I can say it works for me. It opens a dialogue that may save a life.

marietta

[BB Kate]

Whilst i'm not disputing AAs efficacy for many, i think members open it up to scrutinty by claiming 'it works' - the obvious response is 'what is it's success rate?'

[marietta]

Do you believe that the Program itself does not work, or that the failure rate is due to the unwillingness of some folks to work the Program as directed?

marietta

[Henry Porter]

An interpretation of this question could be-is attendance at AA meetings beneficial for all alcoholics?If the answer is yes,it follows that those who have failed to achieve sobriety should be held personally accountable for their failure.

[Step 9]

I have looked a little deeper into this on an official level and AA does whats called [Triennial Membership Surveys] started by Dr. John L Norris, nonalcoholic chairman of AA‟s Board of Trustees.

Using Length of Sobriety as a Measurement of “Success”
For it to be possible to compare recovery outcome "success" rates, it is necessary to understand that the meaning of the word “success” is inconsistent among various observers and critics. If a member has not had any alcohol for the last 5 years, most observers would agree that is a measure of success. It doesn't matter if the sobriety began the day of the first meeting or some time substantially later. The member has been sober for 5 years and that is what matters.

AA views success as continuous sobriety - that is, the alcoholic lives a normal life without ever drinking. However, the medical and scientific community often has a less demanding criterion for success. This criterion is frequently one year of total abstinence.

Their is loads of reading on this subject, i myself have almost reached 7 years in sobriety i did not get the program straight away and had a few slips.
I have found as long as i do service, attend a couple of meetings a week, stay in contact with my sponsor, take inventory & hand over, it works for me.

[BB Kate]

Henry Porter, Do you feel that the AA Program is infallable, perfect? And that even those who try their hardest, really give it their all, are to be blamed?

Surely there are some circumstances where people's criticisms of AA or its members are valid. Or is AA beyond reproach, improvement or growth?

But you raise an interesting question. Some on this forum say 'AA doesn't work for everybody', but is this true? Or is the AA program perfect and those who bust or leave are to be considered dishonest, egotistical or cowardly?

[BB Kate]

STep 9,

If AAs measure of success is a normal life of sobriety, without drinking - success rates MUST be quite low.

Very few of us stay sober permanently.

Kate

[Step 9]

STep 9,

If AAs measure of success is a normal life of sobriety, without drinking - success rates MUST be quite low.

Very few of us stay sober permanently.

Kate

Can you tell me how you come to your conclusion on this?? like i said 5% seems to be the figure bounded about, i here people at meetings saying this.

[Steven F]

Or is the AA program perfect and those who bust or leave are to be considered dishonest, egotistical or cowardly?

I left judgement behind me a few months after the last drink. Life is much better without wasting time and energy on judgement...

[BB Kate]

I seem to recall that the 5% figure is based on those still sober after 1 year (the scientific measure).

If AA consdiers success lifelong abstinence as success, there will be a further dropoff after 1 year, menaing the success rate would be lower than 5% by AA measures.

[Henry Porter]

Henry Porter, Do you feel that the AA Program is infallable, perfect? And that even those who try their hardest, really give it their all, are to be blamed

?

Surely there are some circumstances where people's criticisms of AA or its members are valid. Or is AA beyond reproach, improvement or growth?

But you raise an interesting question. Some on this forum say 'AA doesn't work for everybody', but is this true? Or is the AA program perfect and those who bust or leave are to be considered dishonest, egotistical or cowardly?

If AA works for all alcoholics,as is claimed,then there can't be a case of someone giving it their all and failing,so the blame must be directed entirely towards the member who drank after attending AA.If however,AA is flawed,then it doesn't follow that the AA member who drinks should carry the blame.Either the claim that AA 'works' must be discarded,or the claim that responsibility for relapse rests upon the individual must be discarded.Those who claim that the AA program is perfect are forced,logically,to regard those who leave or bust as being willfully flawed.

[avaneesh912]

There are some rigid guidelines that are to be followed. And it is very difficult. Those members that try we could safely say will succeed.

There are several instances of the book that talks about this:

To show other alcoholics precisely how we have recovered is the main purpose of this book (Forwards)

Further on, clear-cut directions are given showing how we recovered. These are followed by three dozen personal experiences. (there is A Solution)

Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. (How it works, it says followed our path)

Here are the steps we took, which are suggested as a program of recovery: (Also from How it works, it does not say we went to 90 in 90 or sat in the Living Sober Discussion Meetings or went to lot of Open Discussion meetings)

[John Boy]

There are some rigid guidelines that are to be followed. And it is very difficult. Those members that try we could safely say will succeed.

There are several instances of the book that talks about this:

To show other alcoholics precisely how we have recovered is the main purpose of this book (Forwards)

Further on, clear-cut directions are given showing how we recovered. These are followed by three dozen personal experiences. (there is A Solution)

Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. (How it works, it says followed our path)

Here are the steps we took, which are suggested as a program of recovery: (Also from How it works, it does not say we went to 90 in 90 or sat in the Living Sober Discussion Meetings or went to lot of Open Discussion meetings)

Actually some of those Bill Wilson quotes are arrogant.. Some say that the ones who stayed sober were going to stay sober regardless of AA or not as they just had enough. AA/God just made it warm and fuzzy.

[avaneesh912]

There are the 'Real Alcoholics' and then there are imitations. Real alcoholics need spirituality. Now i am not saying AA is the only program out there but, some form of spiritual solution is a must.

[marietta]

If alcoholism is a disease with mental, physical and spiritual components, why is anyone here trying to measure its success by scientific means? This approach doesn't seem to allow for character defects, demoralization, apathy, self-loathing or any of the other deep-seated problems that accompany alcoholism. I contend that success can't be measured except by those who have tried to embrace this program, for we are the only ones who know in our heart of hearts whether we completely gave ourselves to the program. Alcoholics lie. That's a fact. Anyone who does not stay sober after actually working the steps and doing all that is suggested is likely to lie about his or her failure, or exaggerate the complexity of the program, as are those who never embraced the program in the first place.

I'm with Steven F - why measure? Why judge? If we are sober today it is our responsibility to extend the loving hand of AA to the next person who might just get it. And I pray for those who don't.

marietta