Posts Tagged ‘alcoholics anonymous’
Picking Addiction Help
“Treatment is not a prerequisite to surviving addiction.” This bold statement opens the treatment chapter in a helpful new book, “Now What? An Insider's Guide to Addiction and Recovery,” by William Cope Moyers, a man who nonetheless needed “four …
Read more on New York Times (blog)
Effective Addiction Treatment
Countless people addicted to drugs, alcohol or both have managed to get clean and stay clean with the help of organizations like Alcoholics Anonymous or the thousands of residential and outpatient clinics devoted to treating addiction. But if you have …
Read more on New York Times (blog)
Addiction: Vaccine to Help Fight Alcoholism
Alcoholism can lead to family, financial and health problems and that's why Chile has finally come up with a vaccine to fight the addiction of alcoholism by giving you a massive hangover if you sip a little alcohol. And who wants to have a hangover …
Read more on HealthmeUp
Question by Maryy: What percent of rehabilitated people actually are cured?
ok so this is for a project….
does anyone know what percent of rehabilitated people get out and dont do the same mistake agian??? (i.e.- they would use drugs daily, went to rehab, then when they got out they quit completly)
i searched yahoo, google, and ask jeeves. i did all of my project and this is just a small part of it wich isnt really gonna be graded so keep your useless coments to yourself
Best answer:
Answer by raysny
Rehabs often claim amazing results, but the reality is less than spectacular.
According to Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_addiction
“The effectiveness of alcoholism treatments varies widely. When considering the effectiveness of treatment options, one must consider the success rate based on those who enter a program, not just those who complete it. Since completion of a program is the qualification for success, success among those who complete a program is generally near 100%. It is also important to consider not just the rate of those reaching treatment goals but the rate of those relapsing. Results should also be compared to the roughly 5% rate at which people will quit on their own. A year after completing a rehab program, about a third of alcoholics are sober, an additional 40 percent are substantially improved but still drink heavily on occasion, and a quarter have completely relapsed.”
That estimate is based on information from Dr. Mark Willenbring of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, and in my opinion, optomistic.
” About 80 percent of addiction patients will relapse, studies suggest, and long-term success rates for treatment are estimated at 10-30 percent.
“The therapeutic community claims a 30 percent success rate, but they only count people who complete the program,” noted Joseph A. Califano Jr., of the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University. “Seventy to eighty percent drop out in three to six months.” ”
http://www.addictioninfo.org/articles/1633/1/Little-Evidence-that-Costly-Treatment-Programs-Work/Page1.html
90-95% of rehabs in the US are 12step-based. The rest are Scientology or religion-based.
The 12step treatment method has been shown to have about a 5% success rate, the same as no treatment at all:
Although the success rate is the same, AA harms more people than no treatment:
1) Dr. Brandsma found that A.A. increased the rate of binge drinking, and
2) Dr. Ditman found that A.A. increased the rate of rearrests for public drunkenness, and
3) Dr. Walsh found that “free A.A.” made later hospitalization more expensive, and
4) Doctors Orford and Edwards found that having a doctor talk to the patient for just one hour was just as effective as a whole year of A.A.-based treatment.
5) Dr. George E. Vaillant, the A.A. Trustee, found that A.A. treatment was completely ineffective, and raised the death rate in alcoholics. No other way of treating alcoholics produced such a high death rate as did Alcoholics Anonymous.
http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-letters85.html
1) http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-effectiveness.html#Brandsma
2) http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-effectiveness.html#Ditman
3) http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-effectiveness.html#Walsh
4) http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-effectiveness.html#Orford
5) http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-effectiveness.html#Vaillant
Add your own answer in the comments!
Question by Tom: I have a love/hate relationship with alcoholics anonymous. Anyone else feel this way?
I like the fact that its a place where I can meet others that understand and support, but that’s about it. As far as almost everything within the big book and most of the steps, i think their bunk and cult-like. Does anyone else feel this way?
Best answer:
Answer by raysny
Sure do, except for the love part.
I bounced in and out of the rooms for years, never able to stop drinking for more than a few months at a time. I had to turn my back on AA and take responsibility for my alcoholism and my recovery. I had to unlearn the powerless nonsense, forget that I’m supposed to have a lifelong disease that I can never recover from.
I never received any support from members because I’m an atheist. They loudly predicted that I would die drunk in a gutter for refusing to find their God. Don’t believe their claims that your “Higher Power” can be anything you want, by their definition, their Higher Power is a pretty specific god, and one that is not entirely compatible with the Christian God or the God of any mainstream religion that I’m aware of.
I felt that if I could get help for the depression that fueled my drinking, I’d be able to stay stopped, but for years I couldn’t find anyone who would help unless I had a chunk of sober time through AA. So I’d try, I’d go to AA, get treated like dirt while my clinical depression merged with the chemical depression of early sobriety and I’d be suicidal.
Next month will be 11 years sober for me. I co-own the Yahoo group “without_aa”:
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/without_aa/
which is about deprogramming from AA, alternatives, and the general weirdness of the rooms.
AA does NOT improve on the rate of natural remission, people quitting on their own. The vast majority of people quit without ANY type of treatment.
The NIAAA’s 2001–2002 National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions interviewed over 43,000 people. Using the criteria for alcohol dependence found in the DSM-IV, they found:
“About 75 percent of persons who recover from alcohol dependence do so without seeking any kind of help, including specialty alcohol (rehab) programs and AA. Only 13 percent of people with alcohol dependence ever receive specialty alcohol treatment.”
http://www.spectrum.niaaa.nih.gov/features/alcoholism.aspx
Anyone having doubts about AA should do some poking around at this site:
The Orange Papers
http://www.orange-papers.org/
What do you think? Answer below!
Question by Maryy: What percent of rehabilitated people actually are cured?
ok so this is for a project….
does anyone know what percent of rehabilitated people get out and dont do the same mistake agian??? (i.e.- they would use drugs daily, went to rehab, then when they got out they quit completly)
i searched yahoo, google, and ask jeeves. i did all of my project and this is just a small part of it wich isnt really gonna be graded so keep your useless coments to yourself
Best answer:
Answer by raysny
Rehabs often claim amazing results, but the reality is less than spectacular.
According to Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_addiction
“The effectiveness of alcoholism treatments varies widely. When considering the effectiveness of treatment options, one must consider the success rate based on those who enter a program, not just those who complete it. Since completion of a program is the qualification for success, success among those who complete a program is generally near 100%. It is also important to consider not just the rate of those reaching treatment goals but the rate of those relapsing. Results should also be compared to the roughly 5% rate at which people will quit on their own. A year after completing a rehab program, about a third of alcoholics are sober, an additional 40 percent are substantially improved but still drink heavily on occasion, and a quarter have completely relapsed.”
That estimate is based on information from Dr. Mark Willenbring of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, and in my opinion, optomistic.
” About 80 percent of addiction patients will relapse, studies suggest, and long-term success rates for treatment are estimated at 10-30 percent.
“The therapeutic community claims a 30 percent success rate, but they only count people who complete the program,” noted Joseph A. Califano Jr., of the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University. “Seventy to eighty percent drop out in three to six months.” ”
http://www.addictioninfo.org/articles/1633/1/Little-Evidence-that-Costly-Treatment-Programs-Work/Page1.html
90-95% of rehabs in the US are 12step-based. The rest are Scientology or religion-based.
The 12step treatment method has been shown to have about a 5% success rate, the same as no treatment at all:
Although the success rate is the same, AA harms more people than no treatment:
1) Dr. Brandsma found that A.A. increased the rate of binge drinking, and
2) Dr. Ditman found that A.A. increased the rate of rearrests for public drunkenness, and
3) Dr. Walsh found that “free A.A.” made later hospitalization more expensive, and
4) Doctors Orford and Edwards found that having a doctor talk to the patient for just one hour was just as effective as a whole year of A.A.-based treatment.
5) Dr. George E. Vaillant, the A.A. Trustee, found that A.A. treatment was completely ineffective, and raised the death rate in alcoholics. No other way of treating alcoholics produced such a high death rate as did Alcoholics Anonymous.
http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-letters85.html
1) http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-effectiveness.html#Brandsma
2) http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-effectiveness.html#Ditman
3) http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-effectiveness.html#Walsh
4) http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-effectiveness.html#Orford
5) http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-effectiveness.html#Vaillant
Add your own answer in the comments!
Question by Hello There: Is the recovery from bulimia in a 12 step program drastically different than Alcoholics Anonymous?
I had a friend tell me that in ABA for example- you don’t start counting days again if you purge again, and that the road to recovery isn’t complete abstinence from binging and purging, but reaching a level of manageability in which you ‘get back on the horse’ when you purge after a period of refraining. I was alarmed, but intrigued by her statements and wanted to find out if this was the case- since I’m so AA biased.
Best answer:
Answer by thebigz
there is over eaters antonymous in a 12 step program but as far as i know there is no program for bulimia you can make your program around the two where you are now and the oa program and see if that works if you like the 12 step program
Good Luck
What do you think? Answer below!
Question by starr: are there any books besides Alcoholics Anonymous-The Big Book that can be helpful to alcoholics seeking help?
Best answer:
Answer by kerrbear
The Joe and Charlie audio cds have been very helpful to my husband. They can be purchased from the Joe and Charlie web site or on Ebay and are very reasonably priced. There are others but my husband likes these best because they are seem more true to the experiences of actual alcoholics.
Give your answer to this question below!