Posted by:
SL Cabbie
(
)
Date: December 14, 2010 10:51PM
Getting drunk five nights a week for several years? I wasn't much older than you when I quit, and maybe had five nights in five years when I wasn't drunk or drinking... And then there was drinking in the morning (when I could get myself up)
And it's a pity you didn't go to meetings long enough to hear that "one finger pointed at someone else, three pointing back" metaphor...
AA didn't release those ten percent figures, BTW... You've appropriated them from somewhere else...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcoholics_AnonymousNo kidding on the first sentence in this one...
>AA tends to polarize observers into believers and non-believers, and discussion of AA often creates controversy rather than objective reflection. Moreover, a randomized study of AA is difficult: AA members are not randomly selected from the population of chronic alcoholics, with the possible exception of those who are mandated by courts to attend AA meetings; they are instead self-selected. There are two opposing types of self-selection bias: (1) drinkers may be motivated to stop drinking before they participate in AA (2) AA may attract the more severe and difficult cases. Controlled experiments with AA versus non-AA subjects are also difficult because AA is so easily accessible. Twelve-step groups, like AA, are not conducive to probability sampling of members. Research on AA is therefore susceptible to sampling bias.
>Every third year since 1968, AA has issued a pamphlet summarizing its latest triennial survey of meeting attendants. Additional published comments and analysis for academics and professionals have supplemented the survey results from 1970 through 1990. The 1990 commentary evaluated data of triennial surveys from 1977 through 1989 and found that one quarter (26%) of those who first attend an AA meeting are still attending after one year. Furthermore, nearly one third (31.5%) leave the program after one month, and by the end of the third month, over half (52.6%) leave. After the first year, the rate of attrition slows. Only those in the first year were recorded by month. About 40% of the members sober for less than a year will remain another year. About 80% of those sober less than five years will remain sober and active in the fellowship another year. About 90% of the members sober five years or more will remain sober and active in the fellowship another year. Those who remained sober outside the fellowship could not be calculated using the survey results.
>Loran Archer's analysis of AA's triennial membership surveys conducted from 1977 through 1989. deduces that:
>The 95% dropout rate, claimed by some of A.A.'s modern critics,is inaccurate and based on flawed statistics. Rather than 5% of A.A. members remaining at the end of one year a more accurate estimate is that 36% remain attending A.A. at the end of one year and 32% are still attending at the end of 20 years.