PhD/PsyD Article on AA

[Therapist4Chnge]

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I agree that a support system that is specific for recovery does make it harder to distinguish between professional treatment and just social support like T4Cs bowling league example (although those bowlers can drink a lot of beer so maybe not as good a social support for addiction as for depression 😉) . So I guess I won't blow your brains out. 😀

Interestingly, her league was in the late morning, so they'd do coffee, donuts, etc. I had never heard of such a thing, but evidently it exists.

I was a fill-in bowler for my friend's team a couple months back, and it was definitely a let's have a beer or six+ setup. I can see how a "typical" league may not fit for someone w. a substance abuse history.

 

[Pragma]

It's a resource, but, with the current climate, it is a resource that is overshadowing other, more empirically based resources that should be utilized first, or primarily.

In what way is it overshadowing other resources? Maybe that can help me to understand your issue more.

 

[smalltownpsych]

Interestingly, her league was in the late morning, so they'd do coffee, donuts, etc. I had never heard of such a thing, but evidently it exists.

Awesome! Another good option for people trying to abstain from substance use. One of the common complaints from substance users is the struggle with finding activities to do that don't involve using substances. Coffee and donuts, heck that's almost an AA meeting with bowling added to the mix.

 

[WisNeuro]

When something dominates a milieu in such a fashion, it tends to lead to other approaches being ignored, utilized, invested in. Imagine if another treatment method were mandated for over 100k people a year, what do you think would happen to it's acceptability and use in society? I don't think it's any stretch to say that AA's popularity and evangelizing slowed down the progress of addiction treatment considerably over the past several decades.

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

Awesome! Another good option for people trying to abstain from substance use. One of the common complaints from substance users is the struggle with finding activities to do that don't involve using substances. Coffee and donuts, heck that's almost an AA meeting with bowling added to the mix.

I'm curious if that may have been part of it.

Finding alcohol-free social activities is harder than most people realize. I abstain while in training for races, and it's amazing how most things as an adult include alcohol.

 

[Justanothergrad]

When something dominates a milieu in such a fashion, it tends to lead to other approaches being ignored, utilized, invested in. Imagine if another treatment method were mandated for over 100k people a year, what do you think would happen to it's acceptability and use in society? I don't think it's any stretch to say that AA's popularity and evangelizing slowed down the progress of addiction treatment considerably over the past several decades.

This is interesting. I don't study AA but I am interested in decision making processes that lead to treatment seeking behaviors.

This thread got my head turning for project future directions by differentiating formal, professionally administeres interventions with social supports like AA..

 

[smalltownpsych]

The articles Pragma posted are good and too bad they weren't around when I was doing my dissertation, but they also point to some of the difficulties we have reconciling the two paradigms of a 12-step group and professional treatment. As I read one of the articles it discussed doing step work as one of the measures of AA involvement and that type of written work is often a component of TSF models. In AA, the written work of some of the steps can be a part of the process, but it tends to be the least important. For many AA members, the principals that underlie the steps and how to apply these to their lives is of more significance than completing workbooks. This is one example. It is not surprising to me that TSF initially led to greater involvement in AA, but that eventually the CBT and TSF had the same level of involvement. As psychologists, we need to be careful about the lens that we are looking at these phenomena.

 

[Pragma]

When something dominates a milieu in such a fashion, it tends to lead to other approaches being ignored, utilized, invested in. Imagine if another treatment method were mandated for over 100k people a year, what do you think would happen to it's acceptability and use in society? I don't think it's any stretch to say that AA's popularity and evangelizing slowed down the progress of addiction treatment considerably over the past several decades.

We'll have to agree to disagree here, as again it seems to me that you are putting all of the negative things about treatment into the 'AA bucket" without recognizing that a lot of that has nothing to do with AA. A term like "evangelizing" also does not fit in my view. Moreover, if you look at the funding distribution for studying different treatments and resources, you'd find that the vast majority goes towards formal treatments and medications, not studies of the support group AA. I don't believe it has slowed anything down.

 

[WisNeuro]

As an aside, I'd like to take this opportunity to point out the fact that the "Old Guard" debates and argues with each other all the time. Contrary to the opinion that we all band together and try to destroy only new and dissenting opinions. File this one away for fighting the confirmation bias once we inevitably go down that road again.

 

[Pragma]

As an aside, I'd like to take this opportunity to point out the fact that the "Old Guard" debates and argues with each other all the time. Contrary to the opinion that we all band together and try to destroy only new and dissenting opinions. File this one away for fighting the confirmation bias once we inevitably go down that road again.

Like the confirmation bias Wis has when selectively reviewing the AA literature?

Zing! Aside from this blind spot, I'll bravely follow Wisneuro to the trenches in the name of the Old Guard.

 

[WisNeuro]

Like the confirmation bias Wis has when selectively reviewing the AA literature?

Zing! Aside from this blind spot, I'll bravely follow Wisneuro to the trenches in the name of the Old Guard.

So help me FSM, if I ever see you at a neuro conference...we will have words. Presumably over a plethora of drinks.

 

[smalltownpsych]

We need to get this back on topic. 200K in debt for a low-match rate FSPS program is a really stupid idea. There, now we're back on track. 😎