The Cochrane 2006 review of Alcoholics Anonymous (Ferri 2006), which concluded that no experimental studies show the effectiveness of Alcoholics Anonymous compared to other treatments, is out of date. There have been multiple experimental studies showing twelve step facilitation (which is when a doctor on counselor helps an alcoholic go to AA meetings and become a part of AA's culture) effectiveness which are more recent than this old review. I just added two of those studies to the Wikipedia:
Litt et al. 2009
Litt et al. 2009 randomly assigned to patients to one of three treatments: Network support, network support and contingency management, or a control condition (case management). The network support condition, which was "designed to use AA as an efficient means to engage patients in a supportive abstinence-oriented social network", had significantly better abstinence rates compared to the control and the combined treatments. This study is PMC2661035.
Walitzer 2009
Walitzer 2009 is an experimental study which randomly assigned patients to one of three treatments. Two of the treatments were Twelve Step Facilitation (TSF) treatments: Treatments which helped patients become involved with Alcoholics Anonymous and other twelve step programs.
One of the two TSF treatments, the 12-Step-based directive approach, resulted in increased number of days abstinent and other positive outcomes compared to the other two treatments. This study is PMC2802221.
Both of these studies are free to read; I encourage anyone who believes that the old Cochrane study still shows that Alcoholics Anonymous does not work to read these post-Cochrane studies.
