I think there have been actual scientifically valid studies that show that AA does some good? Am I correct in that?
Not really.
http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-effectiveness.html
When I said "Keep coming back, it will probably kill you if you work it" I wasn't at all kidding.
There are other options for addicts and alcoholics who want voluntary recovery solutions. Maia Szalavitz wrote a Book on Recovery options and some more are listed on the Orange Papers.
hmm.. I must say, though, I don’t trust Miiaia She writes that the parents who put their kids away are just "decent" but "scared", usually, and I think most of these parents cannot be considered decent. She also wrote about a "treatment" program that is "evidence based" that helps kids that were involved in violent crime as part her summation of alternative treatments, which misrepresents the kids who are locked away in programs.
Further, the "treatment" involved reenacting crimes in a way that was supposed to make the kid feel empathy for their victim...and it was done in a group setting, with other kids giving feed back, it makes me wary...
But, huh, no evidence showing that aa works, that’s pretty funny..I’ll read those links later. Intuitively, (not that means much) I feel that aa can work, just because it provides people who are rudderless a way to anchor themselves socially, to have a supportive social network from which they don’t have to hide their issues, and can sort of give them hope..Also, some of their ideas about thought problems (stinking thinking) when not misused, sound on target. Stinking think sounds a lot like depressive thinking. But I’ve read how individual aa sects get unhealthy…and that seems like a probable complication, given how its run.