Death without Dying

[Eilonnwy]

Padraic, I think that's an admirable way to approach AA, it's not the way it's approached here though. I have been to AA meetings to support my parents and I had to deal with my Aunt preaching about AA when my uncle was dying. Most of the people I know in AA treat it like religion.

But as I said before, if AA helps get you sober and stay sober, then that's good. I just don't like the way some people impose it on others.

You are right, AA has about a 5% success rate, which is the Spontaneous Remission rate. To say that nothing works better than the 5% success rate, leaves out the very important fact that it's the same as the spontaneous remission rate which exists in all types of illnesses. That means AA is no better and no worse than people who just quit and stay sober without help. Therefore, it's claims that it is the only way to stay sober is completely false. This is why I stand by my statement that if AA works for you, that's awesome and more power to you. I just dislike the insistence people have that AA is the only way to stay sober, when it's simply not true. There are rehab programs, even drugs than can help, and other support groups that don't rely on a "higher power" like Secular Sobriety. The key is to find what works for you and go with it.

A 5% success rate is nothing more than the rate of spontaneous remission in alcoholics and drug addicts. That is, out of any given group of alcoholics or drug addicts, approximately 5% per year will just wise up, and quit killing themselves.6 They just get sick and tired of being sick and tired, and of watching their friends die. (And something between 1% and 3% of their friends do die annually, so that is a big incentive.) They often quit with little or no official treatment or help. Some actually detox themselves on their own couches, or in their own beds, or locked in their own closets. Often, they don't go to a lot of meetings. They just quit, all on their own, or with the help of a couple of good friends who keep them locked up for a few days while they go through withdrawal. A.A. and N.A. true believers insist that addicts can't successfully quit that way, but they do, every day.

Every disease has a spontaneous remission rate. The rate for the common cold is basically 100 percent — almost nobody ever dies just from a cold. People routinely just "get over it", naturally. Likewise, ordinary influenza — "the flu" — has a very high spontaneous remission rate, greater than 99%. Yes, some old people do die from the flu every year, but not very many. Most people just get over it.

On the other hand, diseases like cancer and Ebola have very low spontaneous remission rates — left untreated, they are very deadly and few people recover from them.

Source: http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-effectiveness.html