Over a year ago, I retired this blog. When I retired the blog, I noted “I would restart this blog again if inaccurate claims about AA efficacy made it back to the mainstream press”.
Well, wouldn’t you know it, Vice has posted an anti-AA screed (archive link) in the UK edition of their magazine.
First of all, Vice is considered, as I type this, a source of questionable reliability in the Wikipedia. Concerning the quality of the article they posted about AA, I can see why their reliability is not top notch.
Near the beginning of the article, they link to two anti-AA Facebook groups; one has, as I type this, about 1,600 members; the other has around 1,300 members. Compare that to the one AA support group with about 41,500 members and another unofficial group simply called Alcoholics Anonymous with about 39,300 members, we see that the there are 24-30 people getting better in AA for each person who wastes their time complaining about the program and not improving. Considering how much more popular the AA-positive support groups are, it’s undue weight to focus only on the anti-AA groups.
They then look at the AA documentary The 13th Step without any critical evaluation of its contents. This “documentary” (which was a complete flop without little to no notability) makes the accusation that women will be forced to endure sexual harassment if they wish to get sober in AA. That may be true of a few isolated fellowships (such as the infamous Midtown fellowship well over a decade ago), but the general rule is this:
- Alcoholics Anonymous has safe spaces for women: A number of meetings are meetings which only women can attend.
- There is a strong cultural rule that men stick with men and women stick with women in the AA fellowship, in order to minimize women getting unwanted sexual advances.
- Many sponsors and people in the rooms of AA suggest people stay out of relationships (i.e. have sex) in their first year of sobriety; this again is for the protection of newcomer women.
- The fellowships I have been to will confront men who make inappropriate advances towards women.
Women have plenty of options to avoid men and harassment in the fellowships I have been to.
Next, the article goes on to mentions a book written by one Steven Slate, who makes a number of dubious claims about AA’s effectiveness. For example, he quotes a study published over 40 years ago to make negative claims about AA’s efficacy, without acknowledging that the study has been discredited, something I have extensively discussed on this blog. As another example, Mr. Slate has not even acknowledged the existence of the Cochrane 2020 study which shows that Alcoholics Anonymous is more effective at achieving abstinence for alcoholics than other treatments.
Indeed, the Vice article does acknowledge that “AA definitely works” for a significant subset of alcoholics, but only in the final paragraph.
The fact of the matter is this: AA works most of the time for people who work it. However, alcoholics are a stubborn lot, and many of them will find excuses for not going to meetings, not working the steps, and not getting better: Complaining about sexual harassment (so why not only go to women’s AA meetings) or falsely claiming that AA does not help alcoholics.
It’s unfortunate that Vice media has chosen to publish an article which encourages alcoholics to come up with more excuses to not go to AA and more excuses to not get better.
Update: The author the this Vice article has responded on Twitter: “Hi! Thanks for responding. This article isn’t meant to downplay AAs significance in helping millions get sober. It’s just an alternative perspective that explains why some people left during the pandemic. It’s good to offer alternative solutions so such complex problems!”
