Recent examination of the Alcoholics Anonymous 12-step program may have the organisation stand up and admit, “Hi our name is AA, and we have a problem.” The famous abuse program and its methods have been around for 75 years, but have recovery experts questioning its validity in this day and age.

A literature review of used alcohol abuse treatment approaches, listed the AA’s 12-step program 38th out of 48 different approaches for its effectiveness. Yet the AA program is still used as a court-mandated course for about 165 000 people in America and Canada annually. Recovery experts like Dr. Lance Dodes, a former director of Harvard’s substance abuse treatment unit at McLean Hospital say, “Alcoholics Anonymous was proclaimed the correct treatment for alcoholism over seventy-five years ago despite the absence of any scientific evidence of the approach’s efficacy.”

The 12-step program has been criticised for it saying that the victim must surrender to a “higher power”, accept their “powerlessness” and pray for your “defects of character” to be lifted, in the original 12-step outline. It may be true that the those who attend AA program generally tend to drink less or abstain from alcohol. But Dode points out that there is no proof that making people attend the 12-step program works better than other available methods or even doing nothing at all.

[ Source : PSMag ]