Alcoholics Anonymous and Drug Addiction

[John V]

I wasn't claiming that this was strictly an AA thing, I was talking strictly about how AA members feel about people who get sober without AA. Obviously many different groups of people in society tend to think in a righteous manner about their ways of living.

Er, OK...a little random to just start a thread about it regarding AA, but whatever.

But yes it's interesting... AA is a nonprofit group but their whole pitch just leaves you thinking, "ok what's the catch?"

It never left me thinking that. AA didn't work for me in the long run. All the talk about drinking just made me want to drink. But I have plenty of respect for them. I didn't see any catches. As they say in the intro to many meetings, "If you want what we have..." Seems like a fair pitch to me.

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Five percent is hardly doing well. So cheer leading for it is a disservice to alcoholics and other addicts. But you're right that celebrating what worked for oneself is human. It's just not necessarily useful to anyone else.

First, you don't know that it's five percent. Second, if it's 5%, that's a huge deal to the 5% and their families, as no one else is offering anything better.

I suspect you are thinking of me (among others) as one of those who think all Christians are miserable and sexually repressed.

Nope. I can't recall specific people, but it's a common enough thought here.

I don't--though I do know Christians who are one, the other, or both of those things. Absent religion, I don't really know anyone who is very sexual repressed though not all the religious are sexually repressed.

Surveys tend to show the religious as fulfilled sexually and the non-religious.

If religion helps some escape miserableness in the form of alcoholism or anything else, I don't see that separating them from religion makes much sense, unless they are hurting others with religion. But it's important to understand that religion is not the only escape from miserableness and proclaiming that it is, is not a healthy thing. That is what AA does with a 5% track record.

Again, we don't know what the success rate is. Further, there's no reason to expect a high success rate from an organization that opens its doors to anyone who would walk in - even people only there because of a court order. The thought is that those who drop out will at least have an idea about the program if they ever get to the point of really wanting it.