Moving forward, I will only respond to new articles published by the mainstream media which falsely state Alcoholics Anonymous does not work, or link to sources that falsely state that Alcoholics Anonymous is not effective. For example, the Vice article I criticized yesterday was published by a mainstream publisher, and while it did acknowledge Cochrane 2020, it also linked directly to sources which falsely claim AA doesn’t help alcoholics.
My criteria is: “Is this a source notable enough to have its article linked to by mainstream news aggregators?” In other words, stuff published by mainstream newspapers and magazines. Sources which do not meet that bar will be ignored: social media postings, self-published blogs, postings in comment sections (here in the 2020s, comment sections are not as popular as they were a decade ago; good riddance to bad rubbish), and so on will be cheerfully ignored.
If a new peer reviewed study making very negative claims about AA’s efficacy were to be published, I would address it here. Remember: Metastudies from top-notch publisher like the Cochrane 2020 review on AA’s effectiveness trump a single study, even if it’s peer-reviewed.
I am aware and acknowledge AA is not for everyone, and that other treatments appear to be just as effective as AA, but, for most alcoholics, AA is the first place they will go seeking treatment and trying to get better, and the goal of this blog is to make sure that alcoholic still suffering from the disease is properly informed that AA can very well help them get sober and better.
I now have a Twitter account, which I will primarily use to engage with authors of pieces which unfairly criticize AA.
Goodbye for now. This account will only be made active again the when and if I see a new anti-AA article from a reliable and mainstream source.
