The Atlantic: The Irrationality Of Alcoholics Anonymous

[LiberalElite]

http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2015/03/the-irrationality-of-alcoholics-anonymous/386255/?google_editors_picks=true

"J.G. is a lawyer in his early 30s. He’s a fast talker and has the lean, sinewy build of a distance runner. His choice of profession seems preordained, as he speaks in fully formed paragraphs, his thoughts organized by topic sentences. He’s also a worrier—a big one—who for years used alcohol to soothe his anxiety.

J.G. started drinking at 15, when he and a friend experimented in his parents’ liquor cabinet. He favored gin and whiskey but drank whatever he thought his parents would miss the least. He discovered beer, too, and loved the earthy, bitter taste on his tongue when he took his first cold sip.

His drinking increased through college and into law school. He could, and occasionally did, pull back, going cold turkey for weeks at a time. But nothing quieted his anxious mind like booze, and when he didn’t drink, he didn’t sleep. After four or six weeks dry, he’d be back at the liquor store."

[Warpy]

1. The religious nature of the program turns a lot of people off and that's sad

because every person I know who has managed to get sober and stay that way has done so through AA. My atheist friends just had a tougher time of it because the founders who wrote up the program were ultra religious.

Even if a drunk thinks the program is complete cornball nonsense, it's where s/he's going to find people who have gotten sober and who are willing to help him/her get through those truly horrible first years of sobriety. It's where s/he will learn about the nature of alcohol addiction.

Yes, it sorely needs an updating of all those hyper religious materials. However, the basic idea of sober alcoholics helping other people get sober is a sound one.

[JayhawkSD]

8. And every person I've seen worshipping God...

..is an Episcopalian, so it is clear that only Episcopalians worship God. Right? No. It's because I happen to be an Episcopialian and go to an Episcopal church. There are dozens of other types of church in which people worship God, but I have not been in them and cannot, therefor, restify that people actually do worship God in them.

It takes a very limited, or perhaps arrogant, type of mind to think that the only place that something happens is the place in which I have seen it happen.

As it happens, I got sober in AA and have a rather high regard to the organization and the program. I do not, however believe either the 75% or the 8% success rate. I don't know what it is, but I suspect it's not very good; I have seen too many people drop ont in the past 32 years, and too few hang around.

[elleng]

2. It's most important to understand the disease of alcoholism,

which AA doesn't teach, but the community in AA does help.

Dr. Milam's book, Under the Influence, a critical part of the treatment in many places, DOES teach that.

Synopsis
Ten of millions Americans suffer from alcoholism, yet most people still wrongly believe that alcoholism is a psychological or moral problem, and that it can be cured by psychotherapy or sheer will power. Based on groundbreaking scientific research, Under The Influence examine the physical factors that set alcoholics and non-alcoholics apart, and suggests a bold, stigma-free way of understanding and treating the alcoholic.

How to tell if someone you know is an alcoholic.

The progressive stages of alcoholism.

How to get an alcoholic into treatment -- and how to choose a treatment program.

Why frequently prescribed drugs can be dangerous -- even fatal -- for alcoholics.

How to ensure a lasting recovery.

http://www.randomhouse.com/book/114310/under-the-influence-by-james-robert-milam-and-katherine-ketcham

[Fred Sanders]

3. Excellent article. Thanks.

[Yonx]

4. AA is deficient

and overhyped. Good article.

[blkmusclmachine]

5. Alcoholics Anonymous is a rightwing SCAM.

[840high]

6. Is your comment from

personal experience? I disagree with you.

[elleng]

7. So do I disagree.

AA's not the best way to go for a lot of people, and may or may not have 'conservative' roots, but it and its general approach, community, have helped a lot of people.

I maintain that Dr. Milam's work, (above,) encouraging alcoholics to understand their disease, IS the best way to go, but AA can also be used along with its community approach.

[840high]

9. Thank you. Thanks to AA

I have been sober for over 25 years.

[elleng]

11. Wonderful, 840!

Congrats!

[shrike]

10. AA came around when there was nothing else

Alcoholics had nothing, and undoubtedly AA saved a lot of lives. Like the article says, nothing was known about the brain back then. It also acknowledges that Bill W was right: it is a disease, not a moral failing.

Now there are other tools, but there's no reason AA can't continue to be among them.It works for some, not for others. There's no reason to simply dismiss the program just because people have a bone to pick with the religiosity.

[elleng]

12. Yes. Right.

Thanks

[840high]

16. Yes.

[woo me with science]

13. Just adding this here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/the-real-cause-of-addicti_b_6506936.html

[elleng]

15. Dr. Milam has answers about ALCOHOLISM.

http://www.randomhouse.com/book/114310/under-the-influence-by-james-robert-milam-and-katherine-ketcham

[elleng]

14. Chris Hayes doing a segment now, Tuesday, May17, on the article and subject.