Excellent analysis. I wanted to comment on some of these studies that show, for example, 45% of alcoholics can quit without treatment. I'm a recovered alcoholic, and spent a lot of time talking about these types of studies in rehab with the counsellors. They are endlessly annoyed by the very simple errors made, which make these studies e…
Excellent analysis. I wanted to comment on some of these studies that show, for example, 45% of alcoholics can quit without treatment. I'm a recovered alcoholic, and spent a lot of time talking about these types of studies in rehab with the counsellors. They are endlessly annoyed by the very simple errors made, which make these studies extremely misleading.
Every single person in AA (aside from a few who were court-ordered) are there because they have already tried abstinence and failed. They've likely tried it dozens of times on their own. Those trying various medications have also attempted abstinence and failed. This should be pretty obvious; You only go to your doctor or a meeting once you've accepted that you can't fix it on your own.
But what these studies do is take a group of people and they find that abstinence works for 45% of them. That's great! But the second group of people in treatment who are being compared have already self selected out of this 45%. This second group of people has a 0% success rate with abstinence.
So if a program works more than 0% of the time, it's better than abstinence! Because we already know abstinence worked 0% of the time for these people.
Sadly, there are essentially no studies that properly compare abstinence with treatment. Remember when people tried to study porn usage in men, but found it very hard because they couldn't find men who had never watched porn? There's a similar issue here. You can't find alcoholics ready to go through treatment who haven't already tried and failed with abstinence.
And maybe an unpopular opinion: If you can just decide one day give to up alcohol, and successfully do so.... were you really an alcoholic? Is that who we care about here? Many people struggle for decades trying to quit. They lose all their friends and family and job along the way. It's pretty silly to treat these people similarly.
Thanks, I think this is a useful comment, and totally understand why the 'lots of alcoholics can quit without treatment' stuff must be grating. I do think there's a case that someone can be a true alcoholic, decide to quit, and manage to do so without meds/therapy/AA. I think describing it as 'just deciding one day to give up alcohol' probably doesn't capture exact what's going on here. I'd imagine that for a lot of people trying to give up, it will be an excruciating slog that they nevertheless manage to get through without any sort of proper treatment.
You're right though that I should've placed more emphasis on the fact that the people who get treatment will likely be systematically different to the people who just try to abstain and are successful after their initial attempt.
That's fair. Often people have different definitions of "alcoholic". For example, the 78% study cited is people with an "alcohol problem". 63% of those people who solved it on their own now still drink moderately. That's fantastic news that people can do that. But we're sort of stretching the definition of alcoholic in this case. At least beyond the common usage of the term. As harsh as it sounds, these now moderate drinkers would be discouraged from attending AA. It's just not even the same ballpark.
Does finding God count as getting through it on your own? I do know some very serious drinkers who quit that way.
Excellent analysis. I wanted to comment on some of these studies that show, for example, 45% of alcoholics can quit without treatment. I'm a recovered alcoholic, and spent a lot of time talking about these types of studies in rehab with the counsellors. They are endlessly annoyed by the very simple errors made, which make these studies extremely misleading.
Every single person in AA (aside from a few who were court-ordered) are there because they have already tried abstinence and failed. They've likely tried it dozens of times on their own. Those trying various medications have also attempted abstinence and failed. This should be pretty obvious; You only go to your doctor or a meeting once you've accepted that you can't fix it on your own.
But what these studies do is take a group of people and they find that abstinence works for 45% of them. That's great! But the second group of people in treatment who are being compared have already self selected out of this 45%. This second group of people has a 0% success rate with abstinence.
So if a program works more than 0% of the time, it's better than abstinence! Because we already know abstinence worked 0% of the time for these people.
Sadly, there are essentially no studies that properly compare abstinence with treatment. Remember when people tried to study porn usage in men, but found it very hard because they couldn't find men who had never watched porn? There's a similar issue here. You can't find alcoholics ready to go through treatment who haven't already tried and failed with abstinence.
And maybe an unpopular opinion: If you can just decide one day give to up alcohol, and successfully do so.... were you really an alcoholic? Is that who we care about here? Many people struggle for decades trying to quit. They lose all their friends and family and job along the way. It's pretty silly to treat these people similarly.
Thanks, I think this is a useful comment, and totally understand why the 'lots of alcoholics can quit without treatment' stuff must be grating. I do think there's a case that someone can be a true alcoholic, decide to quit, and manage to do so without meds/therapy/AA. I think describing it as 'just deciding one day to give up alcohol' probably doesn't capture exact what's going on here. I'd imagine that for a lot of people trying to give up, it will be an excruciating slog that they nevertheless manage to get through without any sort of proper treatment.
You're right though that I should've placed more emphasis on the fact that the people who get treatment will likely be systematically different to the people who just try to abstain and are successful after their initial attempt.
That's fair. Often people have different definitions of "alcoholic". For example, the 78% study cited is people with an "alcohol problem". 63% of those people who solved it on their own now still drink moderately. That's fantastic news that people can do that. But we're sort of stretching the definition of alcoholic in this case. At least beyond the common usage of the term. As harsh as it sounds, these now moderate drinkers would be discouraged from attending AA. It's just not even the same ballpark.
Does finding God count as getting through it on your own? I do know some very serious drinkers who quit that way.