Alcoholics Anonymous and Drug Addiction

[John V]

Not so if AA does no better than people trying to quit on their own

People who can quit on their own generally don't make it to AA. AA successes are mostly additional to people who can 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.

First, to my knowledge AA doesn't claim a particular success rate.

Second, here's some support that AA works as well as other programs:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/articl...mous-work/
Nevertheless, the results of one well-designed investigation called Project Match, published in 1997, suggest that AA can facilitate the transition to sobriety for many alcoholics. In this study, a group of prominent alcoholism researchers randomly assigned more than 900 problem drinkers to receive one of three treatments over 12 weeks. One was an AA-based treatment called 12-step facilitation therapy that includes contact with a professional who helps patients work the first few of the 12 steps and encourages them to attend AA meetings. The other treatments were cognitive-behavioral therapy, which teaches skills for coping better with situations that commonly trigger relapse, and motivational enhancement therapy, which is designed to boost motivation to cease problem drinking.

The AA-based approach seemed to work and compared favorably with the other therapies...

And AA has the benefit of being free. Donations are voluntary.

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.

That's a complaint of the courts, as AA isn't asking for these people.

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

And again, AA isn't making specific claims, and the numbers are there anyway.

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Drich, where did your figures come from?

Did you pull them out of ur fat red-neck ass?

I referenced leading-edge treatment that suggests that peer-support is not the best model for anorexic treatment, you referenced nothing - nada - and claim that peer support is important?

Where is your evidence?

Unless you give evidence for a common cause of alcoholism and anorexia, your evidence is worth as much as his.