Alcoholics Anonymous and Drug Addiction

[Jenny A]

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.

Not so if AA does no better than people trying to quit on their own or not as well as other programs. Nothing against AA except that I dislike anyone who claims success without tracking the numbers.

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.

It's a theist based solution and putting anyone there by court order is an establishment of religion. No reason it can't be on a menu of court ordered option though.

And again, without the numbers to back it, it should not claim successes it cannot demonstrate.