Alcoholics Anonymous is self-help

Tuesday, August 11th, 2009 at 4:00 am

Alcoholics Anonymous is self-help, not treatment

Alcoholics Anonymous is not really a treatment for alcoholism but a community resource for those wishing to stop drinking. Uncontrolled studies of AA have shown that people who affiliate with AA tend to stop drinking and find that their lives improve in many respects (Emrick et al. 1993).

However, evaluating AA alongside professionally delivered interventions presents problems and perhaps should not be done.

AA, the original 12 Step program, is not a fixed form of â€œtreatmentâ€ and people are free to participate in different ways. Some go a few times and then drop out. Others go more often, but do not actively participate in meetings or â€œwork the program.â€

It is possible that both dropouts and passive participants gain some benefit from the AA experience, but this has not been adequately researched. Only a minority of those ever exposed to AA seem to become full, active members over a long period and consistently â€œworkâ€ all the steps.

There is evidence that certain types of people may be more likely to fully affiliate with AA than others (Ogborne and Glaser, 1981; Emrick et al., 1993), but more research is needed and some studies may no longer be relevant given the current range and diversity of AA groups. However, it seems likely that AA would appeal to those who have experienced serious alcohol-related problems and who can accept the need for abstinence and the term â€œalcoholicâ€.

When professionals refer clients to AA, as adjunctive therapy, on the assumption that they will benefit from such referrals, it is reasonable to ask about the outcomes of these referrals and to compare these outcomes with those achieved by other means.

Project MATCH (1997) included a 12-step facilitation intervention and results showed that those who were encouraged to go to AA did as well as those provided with other interventions.