“AA spread like wildfire through a country desperate for hope at the end of Prohibition and in the midst of the Great Depression.”
Source: The Sober Truth: Debunking the Bad Science Behind 12-Step Programs and the Rehab Industry
“AA has managed to survive, in part, because members who become and remain sober speak and write about it regularly. This is no accident: AA’s twelfth step expressly tells members to proselytize for the organization: “Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.” Adherence to this step has created a classic sampling error: because most of us hear only from the people who succeeded in the program, it is natural to conclude that they represent the whole. In reality, these members speak for an exceptionally small percentage of addicts.”
Source: The Sober Truth: Debunking the Bad Science Behind 12-Step Programs and the Rehab Industry
“AA makes inflated claims about itself. Its foundational document, Alcoholics Anonymous (commonly referred to as the “Big Book” and a perennial best seller), spells out a confident ethos regularly endorsed by AA members: "Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. There are such unfortunates. They are not at fault; they seem to have been born that way. They are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty. Their chances are less than average. There are those, too, who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders, but many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest." In other words, the program doesn’t fail; you fail. Imagine if similar claims were made in defense of an ineffective antibiotic. Imagine dismissing millions of people who did not respond to a new form of chemotherapy as “constitutionally incapable” of properly receiving the drug. Of course, no researchers would make such claims in scientific circles—if they did, they would risk losing their standing. In professional medicine, if a treatment doesn’t work, it’s the treatment that must be scrutinized, not the patient. Not so for Alcoholics Anonymous.”
Source: The Sober Truth: Debunking the Bad Science Behind 12-Step Programs and the Rehab Industry
“More than anything, AA offers a comforting veneer of actionable change: it is something you can do.”
Source: The Sober Truth: Debunking the Bad Science Behind 12-Step Programs and the Rehab Industry
“For an organization that has expressly denied religious standing and publicly claims a secular—even scientific—approach, it is curious that AA retains these explicit references to a spiritual power whose care might help light the way toward recovery. Even for addicts who opt to interpret this step secularly, the problem persists: why can’t this ultimate power lie within the addict?”
Source: The Sober Truth: Debunking the Bad Science Behind 12-Step Programs and the Rehab Industry
“Addiction is not a moral defect, and to suggest that does a great disservice to people suffering with this disorder.”
Source: The Sober Truth: Debunking the Bad Science Behind 12-Step Programs and the Rehab Industry
“The degradation woven through these steps also seems unwittingly designed to exacerbate, rather than relieve, the humiliating feelings so common in addiction. If moral self-flagellation could cure addiction, we could be sure there would be precious few addicts.”
Source: The Sober Truth: Debunking the Bad Science Behind 12-Step Programs and the Rehab Industry
“There is nothing inherently wrong with apologizing to those who have been harmed, directly or indirectly, by the consequences of addiction. The problem is the echo once more of the fundamentalist religious principle: that the path to recovery is to cleanse oneself of sin.”
Source: The Sober Truth: Debunking the Bad Science Behind 12-Step Programs and the Rehab Industry
“People suffering with addictions as a rule tend to be well aware of the many “wrongs” they have committed. Awareness of this fact doesn’t help the problem.”
Source: The Sober Truth: Debunking the Bad Science Behind 12-Step Programs and the Rehab Industry
“I have met and listened to a very large number of people who have “failed” at AA and some who continue to swear by it, despite repeated recidivism.”
Source: The Sober Truth: Debunking the Bad Science Behind 12-Step Programs and the Rehab Industry