Alcoholics Anonymous and Drug Addiction

[Aractus]

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.

No it isn't. Your study is invalid because it's not a controlled trial, nor is it looking at real data from AA.

The study found for their cohorts that 12 weeks of AA was as effective as CBT - that doesn't surprise me. That's only 12 weeks, and it doesn't count people that drop out of the program, or that are excommunicated from 12-step programs, and I know someone who was excommunicated from a 12-step program.

AA has been around for 70 years and has never been updated. CBT has been around maybe 20 years and is constantly being updated. CBT can be delivered in group settings or individually - and when done by a qualified psychologist the individual treatment plan is designed specifically for that patient, unlike AA which is the same for everyone. In fact, they also design group CBT for specific groups of people as well, e.g. people with a particular mental illness, or other associated issue.

If noting else, AA is outdated because it has never been improved upon.

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

So what? The same principles still apply you know - i.e. if you're an anorexic who do you trust to cure your disease? Other anorexics? Or qualified therapists?

Right, well, what they do at the moment - mostly do - is therapists treat anorexics in small groups of say 4 to 5 anorexics. The therapist may meet with the group say once a week. The drawback with this approach is the negative-influence that anorexics have on each other when in the group. And you have to ask yourself if the benefits of the group outweigh the drawback or not. They might and they might not. Some are finding that in fact individual treatment is more effective, and also cheaper because they generally provide it on the phone instead of "traditional" face-to-face.

Now the same is true for problem gambling. A problem gambler who calls a qualified therapist and receives about 30-40 minutes of advice-based interventional therapy is just as well off as someone who participates in an 8-week CBT program, whether individual or in a group. I can in fact show you the peer review literature which shows this.

Now sure, some people may benefit more from an 8-week CBT program, but on average it makes no difference.

Unlike gambling disorder, anorexia does need to be treated with a lengthier treatment program. The only question is which is best - individual or group? It's not firmly answered, but as I said I'm aware of research being done in the UK which is coming down pretty firmly on the individual treatment option, and it's mostly provided by phone and not face-to-face.

Right so it's probably true for anorexia nervosa, it's certainly true for gambling disorder, thus it's quite likely to also be true for alcoholism.

It may not be - it may well be that groups are the best, but we don't know that, and there's no data to suggest that it is.