5 ms·

weird that she just flat breaks AA tradition 11 "we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, and films.” The reason this is so imp

weird that she just flat breaks AA tradition 11 "we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, and films.” The reason this is so important is that should this woman have a "slip" - which LOTS of alcoholics do - now the world, and needy alcoholics, have one more reason to dismiss AA. Try it before you judge it. AA finds u when u need it, not to be traded for a drunkalog to generate page views.

throwaway999777 11y ago
> The reason this is so important is that should this woman have a "slip" - which LOTS of alcoholics do - now the world, and needy alcoholics, have one more reason to dismiss AA. > Try it before you judge it. An organization that tries to inflate its own public success rate, and then asks people to keep an open mind towards it rather than dismiss it. Ok.
- vernie 11y ago
  Yea, better to do nothing, I'm sure it'll sort itself out.
  - throwaway999777 11y ago
    Yes. You can either do AA or do nothing with your problem. That's the only two options in the world. Jeez these AA PR snippets are just stellar.
  - eulo_ 11y ago
    From all studies I've seen it does. As a vague rule addiction lasts at most around 10 years
- jredwards 11y ago
  I haven't dug up the stats in the while, but last I checked, their success rate was exactly the same as cold-turkey going it alone.
  - Devthrowaway80 11y ago
    We've had this discussion ad nauseam on other addiction threads here. The TL;DR of the literature is that in the short term, most methods have the same "success rate", where success here is defined as successfully achieving abstinence from the problem substance. Participation in AA or other support groups (eg. SMART/Rational Recovery) is associated with substantially increased rates of continuous abstinence at the 1, 3 and 5 year marks after quitting, although there may be some self-selection bias going on there (participation rates being higher among the more motivated and so on).
    - thedufer 11y ago
      > Participation in AA is associated with substantially increased rates of continuous abstinence at the 1, 3 and 5 year marks after quitting It's been shown, as much as is possible, that that's all selection bias. People rarely fall off the wagon and then keep going to meetings. AA's rules around anonymity and consent make it conveniently impossible to run good studies, so they are able to (rightly, for the most part) write off any study that runs against them, but are also unable to show any positive findings that don't fall prey to very obvious problems.
      - Devthrowaway80 11y ago
        Your "quote" is not what I wrote, I include other support groups in my statement. I have no interest in arguing with obvious axe-grinding. > People rarely fall off the wagon and then keep going to meetings. I have a significant number of acquaintances who did exactly that, myself included, but I am not going to make the claim that my personal experience means anything statistically. > It's been shown, as much as is possible, that that's all selection bias. If that is the case, feel free to provide some sort of citation to back up your claim.
        thedufer 11y ago
        I have no axe to grind, other than a disdain for supporting emotional ties with poor statistics. I've never brushed with AA or alcoholism in any capacity. That said: In Project MATCH [1] we learn that "twelve-step" (AA), cognitive behavioral therapy, and motivational enhancement therapy all have very similar results across a large number of measures. We also find that CBT performs equivalently to "brief opportunistic intervention" (which goes under a variety of names, but takes a single 5-minute meeting), which is the minimum amount of treatment that we're ethically allowed to give alcoholics. So it may work better than nothing (can't really study that), but there are much lower-touch methods that give equivalent results. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MATCH https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MATCH [2] http://robinsteed.pbworks.com/w/file/fetch/52176344/TreatmentAndPreventionOfAlcoholProblems.pdf http://robinsteed.pbworks.com/w/file/fetch/52176344/Treatmen..., study by "Chick et al. (1988)"
- Devthrowaway80 11y ago
  His understanding of the reasoning behind Tradition 11 is flawed. It has nothing to do with protecting the image AA from member relapses. It has to do with encouraging humility among its members, who are alcoholics and who generally tend to have issues with being self-centered. This is true of a lot of the traditions - "leaders are trusted servants, they don't govern" and so on. Basically trying to keep addicts from getting an inflated sense of their own importance.
zues 11y ago
I have found that lots of aa members have a casual understanding of the traditions of aa. They attend meetings, and share about personal feelings but have little desire to learn and live by the traditions that were created out of hard lessons. The particular tradition you refer to (appropriately) is about protecting AA from the ego's of its members and protecting members from arrogance which everyone know 'precedes a fall'. Another misunderstanding of this tradition has to do with confusion with confidentiality. It was never intended for members to be secret from each other. This tradition is at the level of press, radio and films. Some people have tried to say that anonymity is at the level of members with each other, and that members should hide their full name from each other. In my opinion (which could be wrong) this is due to the influence of treatment centers in the 80's and 90's on the established program of AA. Regardless, I find that careful anonymous sharing about the program of AA online is ok as long as you don't identify yourself as an AA member or use your full name and picture. Or if you do use your full name and picture, you shouldn't admit membership in AA. I do not care to comment on my personal affiliation :)
- imissmyjuno 11y ago
  > protecting members from arrogance which everyone know 'precedes a fall' I feel like nothing can _really_ protect you from members' arrogance if they were determined enough. The rule, in my mind, only creates a certain exclusiveness shrouded in secrecy, which as far dealing with alcoholism seems pretty pointless. If it really works then why not spread the word?
trowawee 11y ago
Take your own inventory and let others take their own, dude.
OvidNaso 11y ago
This actually is not the primary reason for the tradition. See: http://www.aa.org/assets/en_US/en_tradition11.pdf http://www.aa.org/assets/en_US/en_tradition11.pdf

throwaway999777 11y ago

> The reason this is so important is that should this woman have a "slip" - which LOTS of alcoholics do - now the world, and needy alcoholics, have one more reason to dismiss AA. > Try it before you judge it. An organization that tries to inflate its own public success rate, and then asks people to keep an open mind towards it rather than dismiss it. Ok.

vernie 11y ago
Yea, better to do nothing, I'm sure it'll sort itself out.
- throwaway999777 11y ago
  Yes. You can either do AA or do nothing with your problem. That's the only two options in the world. Jeez these AA PR snippets are just stellar.
- eulo_ 11y ago
  From all studies I've seen it does. As a vague rule addiction lasts at most around 10 years
jredwards 11y ago
I haven't dug up the stats in the while, but last I checked, their success rate was exactly the same as cold-turkey going it alone.
- Devthrowaway80 11y ago
  We've had this discussion ad nauseam on other addiction threads here. The TL;DR of the literature is that in the short term, most methods have the same "success rate", where success here is defined as successfully achieving abstinence from the problem substance. Participation in AA or other support groups (eg. SMART/Rational Recovery) is associated with substantially increased rates of continuous abstinence at the 1, 3 and 5 year marks after quitting, although there may be some self-selection bias going on there (participation rates being higher among the more motivated and so on).
  - thedufer 11y ago
    > Participation in AA is associated with substantially increased rates of continuous abstinence at the 1, 3 and 5 year marks after quitting It's been shown, as much as is possible, that that's all selection bias. People rarely fall off the wagon and then keep going to meetings. AA's rules around anonymity and consent make it conveniently impossible to run good studies, so they are able to (rightly, for the most part) write off any study that runs against them, but are also unable to show any positive findings that don't fall prey to very obvious problems.
    - Devthrowaway80 11y ago
      Your "quote" is not what I wrote, I include other support groups in my statement. I have no interest in arguing with obvious axe-grinding. > People rarely fall off the wagon and then keep going to meetings. I have a significant number of acquaintances who did exactly that, myself included, but I am not going to make the claim that my personal experience means anything statistically. > It's been shown, as much as is possible, that that's all selection bias. If that is the case, feel free to provide some sort of citation to back up your claim.
      - thedufer 11y ago
        I have no axe to grind, other than a disdain for supporting emotional ties with poor statistics. I've never brushed with AA or alcoholism in any capacity. That said: In Project MATCH [1] we learn that "twelve-step" (AA), cognitive behavioral therapy, and motivational enhancement therapy all have very similar results across a large number of measures. We also find that CBT performs equivalently to "brief opportunistic intervention" (which goes under a variety of names, but takes a single 5-minute meeting), which is the minimum amount of treatment that we're ethically allowed to give alcoholics. So it may work better than nothing (can't really study that), but there are much lower-touch methods that give equivalent results. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MATCH https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MATCH [2] http://robinsteed.pbworks.com/w/file/fetch/52176344/TreatmentAndPreventionOfAlcoholProblems.pdf http://robinsteed.pbworks.com/w/file/fetch/52176344/Treatmen..., study by "Chick et al. (1988)"
Devthrowaway80 11y ago
His understanding of the reasoning behind Tradition 11 is flawed. It has nothing to do with protecting the image AA from member relapses. It has to do with encouraging humility among its members, who are alcoholics and who generally tend to have issues with being self-centered. This is true of a lot of the traditions - "leaders are trusted servants, they don't govern" and so on. Basically trying to keep addicts from getting an inflated sense of their own importance.

zues 11y ago

I have found that lots of aa members have a casual understanding of the traditions of aa. They attend meetings, and share about personal feelings but have little desire to learn and live by the traditions that were created out of hard lessons. The particular tradition you refer to (appropriately) is about protecting AA from the ego's of its members and protecting members from arrogance which everyone know 'precedes a fall'. Another misunderstanding of this tradition has to do with confusion with confidentiality. It was never intended for members to be secret from each other. This tradition is at the level of press, radio and films. Some people have tried to say that anonymity is at the level of members with each other, and that members should hide their full name from each other. In my opinion (which could be wrong) this is due to the influence of treatment centers in the 80's and 90's on the established program of AA. Regardless, I find that careful anonymous sharing about the program of AA online is ok as long as you don't identify yourself as an AA member or use your full name and picture. Or if you do use your full name and picture, you shouldn't admit membership in AA. I do not care to comment on my personal affiliation :)

imissmyjuno 11y ago
> protecting members from arrogance which everyone know 'precedes a fall' I feel like nothing can _really_ protect you from members' arrogance if they were determined enough. The rule, in my mind, only creates a certain exclusiveness shrouded in secrecy, which as far dealing with alcoholism seems pretty pointless. If it really works then why not spread the word?

trowawee 11y ago

Take your own inventory and let others take their own, dude.

OvidNaso 11y ago

This actually is not the primary reason for the tradition. See: http://www.aa.org/assets/en_US/en_tradition11.pdf http://www.aa.org/assets/en_US/en_tradition11.pdf