AA has helped many conquer their addictions
0 Comments | Roanoke Times & World News, Aug 29, 2010 | by Dan Radmacher
I’m doing something a bit different with the column this week. A couple of weeks ago, we ran a commentary by a psychiatrist questioning the effectiveness of Alcoholics Anonymous and other behavioral approaches to substance abuse and addiction issues. As the psychiatrist’s short biography noted, he is a paid consultant to pharmaceutical companies that are working on developing a drug to treat alcoholism and the author of an upcoming book, “The Rehab Myth: New Medications That Conquer Alcoholism.”
The next day, I got an e-mail from someone I know well who strongly disagreed with the commentary, and had experience that countered many of the commentary’s conclusions.
It was a compelling response. Ordinarily, I would have suggested that this person submit it as a rebuttal. But both the nature of AA and the stigma attached to issues of addiction made that approach unworkable.
Since the psychiatrist’s piece originally appeared in The Washington Post, I hoped that we might find as compelling a rebuttal from another source, but we did not.
So, instead, I am lending my space — and in a way, I suppose, my credibility — to this person who wishes to remain anonymous:
I felt heartsick reading the commentary on the front of the Aug. 15 Horizon section that essentially bashed Alcoholics Anonymous (“Rehab doesn’t work,” Bankole Johnson). To my mind, the companion piece about drinking in moderation did not equate to offering the other side.
I fully support someone questioning AA’s effectiveness, but the absence of an accompanying op-ed touting AA’s virtues disturbed me.
AA tradition holds that the organization’s name “ought never be drawn into public controversy” and that “we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio and films.”
But AA does encourage members to share their personal stories of “experience, strength and hope.” This is mine.
I’m in recovery. I’m not an AA fanatic but do occasionally attend meetings and do have a sponsor, a man with decades of sobriety. I’ve met hundreds of other people with solid, long-term sobriety who credit AA with their recovery. And survival. And I believe them.
I’ve heard profound, goose bump-inducing personal stories about alcoholics hitting terrible “bottoms” and then climbing up and out by working AA’s 12-step program. And I’ve heard inspiring details about the full and successful lives of loving service that have followed.
Johnson’s claim that AA spurns members who relapse is flat-out wrong. Some AA members have returned to drinking for periods that range from brief to prolonged. But when they come back, they are typically welcomed with open arms and, on occasion, a kind but firm dose of tough love.
One of AA’s 12 traditions holds that “the only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking.” Those who return after relapse are lovingly offered a white poker chip and many accumulate a stack before AA sticks. Many others need only one.
Johnson grossly distorts an excerpt from AA’s “Big Book.” That passage does not, as he contends, suggest that AA rejects people who repeatedly relapse. Instead, it simply recognizes that some people will likely never embrace sobriety. All of us have seen people who appear to be chronic alcoholics debilitated by the disease of alcoholism. But no one I know in AA would say they are beyond help.
Yes, some AA members might notch 10 years of sobriety and “go back out” for a time, or forever. But in those 10 years they have been better people, fathers, spouses, workers.
I differ with some of the philosophy and tenets of AA, but I accept those differences because I find meaning in much else.
At an AA meeting I attend, there are physicians, blue-collar workers, middle managers, people without jobs, men and women just released from jail and a diverse mix of ages, races, etc. Lengths of sobriety vary from decades to an hour. And they are smart, savvy and thoughtful folks who attend.
For me, going to a meeting can be like going to the YMCA for a workout
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