Patricia Owens

"Come back, it works if you work!" This is sung at the end of each meeting, but what if you "worked it" and you still come back and get drunk or loaded? Now, most people in the program say things like: "Well, you do not have really done the right steps" or "You did not go to enough meetings" or "You do not pray your Higher Power, "or" You know you've made a mistake, or you'd still sober! "But the truth is that if you did nothing" wrong ", which, in reality, you were not in the program, but the program was simply not a right fit for you, and in fact, fails for most people? hope that even this bit of knowledge would begin to alleviate some of the guilt and shame that many do because of numerous relapses and entering and exiting the 12-step programs for many years.

From what you say to your 12-step meeting is, your only options are to get sober using our program, or its jails, institutions or death, "you tend to stop thinking for yourself (because it is your "best thinking that you are here"), stop questioning and just follow what others tell you to do. It would be nice if this is what has worked ... but unfortunately, the evidence proves the contrary.

The success rate in 12 steps shows about 3 percent. Yes, true ... only 3 percent! (Brown, treatment does not work, 1991). Here are some of the most astonishing statistics (Based on the statistics specific Alcoholics Anonymous World Services ").:

* 45% of people who attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings never return after their first meeting.

* 81% of AA participants left after one month

* 90% left after three months

* 93% left (7%) left after six months

* 95% never return after the first year.

So there is a retention rate of 5% for the first year. Note that five percent of AA newcomers who are still back after a year (and sober, we hope) is exactly the same number as the normal rate of spontaneous remission in alcoholics. A number of studies have shown that a small percentage of alcoholics improve to the point of remission of problems related to alcohol consumption, and we call it a spontaneous remission. The preponderance of studies suggests that the rate of spontaneous remission of alcoholism for a minimum of one year is about 4-18 percent. Successful treatment would, therefore, should produce significant improvement rate over the likely range of spontaneous remission. Alcoholics Anonymous is a far exceed 4-18 per cent recovery rate for the year. Harvard Medical Schoolreported that in the long term, the rate of spontaneous remission in alcoholics is a little over 50 percent. That would put the annual rate of spontaneous remission of around 5 percent. However, the success rate of Alcoholics Anonymous claimed not even to exceed that rate much lower.

If we subtract the normal spontaneous remission rate of success rate of AA claimed, we get zero percent for AA real effective cure rate. AA did not stop drinking any time - those who left were those who were leaving anyway. They have stopped anyway, regardless of the treatment they received, or even no treatment at all! Thus, a treatment program for alcoholism seems.