On 2005-05-19 08:20:00, cherish wisdom wrote:
"Greg - I made the comment because Antigen indicated first that there was a 5% success rate and then a 10% success rate. I think it's reasonable to conclude that there are some success stories -
http://orange-papers.org/orange-effecti ... ard_Mental The Harvard Mental Health Letter, from The Harvard Medical School, stated quite plainly:
On their own
There is a high rate of recovery among alcoholics and addicts, treated and untreated. According to one estimate, heroin addicts break the habit in an average of 11 years. Another estimate is that at least 50% of alcoholics eventually free themselves although only 10% are ever treated. One recent study found that 80% of all alcoholics who recover for a year or more do so on their own, some after being unsuccessfully treated. When a group of these self-treated alcoholics was interviewed, 57% said they simply decided that alcohol was bad for them. Twenty-nine percent said health problems, frightening experiences, accidents, or blackouts persuaded them to quit. Others used such phrases as "Things were building up" or "I was sick and tired of it." Support from a husband or wife was important in sustaining the resolution.
Treatment of Drug Abuse and Addiction -- Part III, The Harvard Mental Health Letter, Volume 12, Number 4, October 1995, page 3.
(See Aug. (Part I), Sept. (Part II), Oct. 1995 (Part III).)
AA has helped many people enjoy years of sobriety.
http://orange-papers.org/orange-propaga ... orrelation Confusion of Correlation and Causation
This is simple and straight-forward: just because two things tend to happen together does not prove that one thing causes the other. Likewise, people also often confuse association and causation, or causation and coincidence. The rooster's crowing doesn't really make the sun rise.
Young women going to church and getting married does not really cause them to get pregnant and have babies, even though there does seem to be a strong correlation there.
Some people who tout "spiritual healing" routinely cite studies that show that people who have positive, cheerful attitudes recover from illnesses and surgeries faster than people who have glum, dour attitudes. They then assume that this is proof of the efficacy of "spiritual healing".
They overlook the obvious fact that those cheerful attitudes may well be caused by the the patients' rapid recovery. People who are rapidly recovering are almost always much more cheerful than patients who are sick unto death and dying.
And they overlook the fact that those two factors may correlate -- they may happen together: Rapid recovery causes cheerful moods, which cause more rapid healing, which causes more cheerfulness, and so on... Just the act of relaxing and being cheerful increases blood flow through the body, which promotes healing and improves the functioning of the immune system. That is simple medicine, not "the power of spiritual healing".
They also ignore the fact that any apparent link between recovery and something else, anything else, may be pure coincidence. In any large group of sick people, some will recover and some won't. There isn't necessarily any link between "spiritual attitudes" and people recovering, but the people who wish to believe there is will concentrate their attention on just the recovering "spiritual" people, and ignore everything else. That, in turn, becomes an example of "observational selection", seeing what you want to see, and ignoring the rest.
And when the investigator has an agenda -- a desired outcome -- he can be also be fooled by observational bias as well -- just tending to see what he wishes to see. The measure of which patients are cheerful, and how cheerful, is a subjective measurement -- it relies entirely on the judgement of the investigator. It is all too easy to rate the recovering patients as very cheerful and the non-recovering patients as very glum when that is what the investigator wishes to see.
Alcoholics Anonymous has plenty of examples of confusion of causation and correlation. The most obvious ones are:
Assuming that attending A.A. meetings makes people quit drinking.
Assuming that doing the Twelve Steps makes people quit drinking.
Assuming that praying makes people quit drinking.
Assuming that doing the Twelve Steps makes people more "spiritual", or more moral. (And of course, this item will be loaded with observational bias -- how do you impartially judge just how much more "spiritual" somebody is after doing the Twelve Steps for three months? And how do you impartially distinguish between "spirituality" and superstition?)
A common use of this propaganda technique is to do polls or surveys of A.A. members, asking them about their drinking habits, and then "discover" that they drink less than some other group of people, perhaps a group of guys at the local bar. Then the "researcher" declares that there is "an association between AA attendance and abstinence from alcohol/drug use", and he concludes that
"Weekly or more frequent attendance at 12-Step programs may be effective in maintaining long-term drug and alcohol abstinence. Treatment providers should encourage and assist their clients in 12-Step participation."
"12-Step programs help maintain abstinence", R Fiorentine, The Brown University Digest of Addiction Theory and Application, Sept 1999, v18 i9 p1
What the "researcher" won't tell you is that if you repeat the study, comparing the people found at the local Baskin Robbins ice cream parlor to the guys at the local bar, you can "prove" that eating ice cream reduces alcohol consumption.
The logical conclusion is, of course:
"Weekly or more frequent attendance at Baskin Robbins may be effective in maintaining long-term drug and alcohol abstinence. Treatment providers should encourage and assist their clients in Baskin Robbins ice cream socials participation."
AA is nothing more than a support group like weight watchers. It helps people stay away from alchol just like weight wathchers helps people stay away from too much food.
AA and WW are different in my opinion. I've never heard anyone preaching that WW is the only way to lose weight, that you'll die without WW etc. etc.
Both have success rates of 5% to 10%.
No different than spontaneous remission
Having support from people in the same boat is very helpful for some.
Having people around you that support your efforts to stop drinking is very different than immersing yourself into the anti-drinking culture.
It's not something that should eraticated from society just because some feel it a cult and so forth.
I don't think any of us have said that. We HAVE said that people being court ordered to a religion
As far as it being religion based - that's BS.
No, its really not.
http://orange-papers.org/orange-religiousroots.html http://orange-papers.org/orange-religio ... tml#FrankB Its absolutely a religion and has been defined as such by the courts time and time again.
My initial response was to sue her for defamation of character, but then I realized that I had no character.
-- Charles Barkley, on hearing Tonya Harding proclaim herself "the Charles Barkley of figure skating"
