2018 is starting off as a great year.
The Vox published today a well-researched story about Alcoholics Anonymous with information which actually reflects what treatment experts know about AA today, called Why some people swear by Alcoholics Anonymous — and others despise it.
Unlike the anti-AA polemics posted by NPR, The Atlantic, and Salon over the past few years, they did not waste their time interviewing known anti-AA critics Lance Dodes or Stanton Peele. Instead, they talked to people with a more balanced view, such as Keith Humphreys.
There’s no nonsense about AA having a 5% success rate; they say about a third of alcoholics are successful using AA. This is actually higher than the numbers I have seen; for example, Moos and Moos 2006 shows that AA has a 67% success rate among the 25% or so of alcoholics who choose to be highly involved in the program their first year sober.
I am glad to see the mainstream press is starting to publish articles showing the real success rate for AA, instead of publishing articles with deceptive success rate figures (there is no peer-reviewed study which concludes AA has a 5% success rate!) which discourage people from going to a program which can save their life.
