> Because it's Anonymous. This is part of what it is. Sucks, but that's what it is. It's an important part. Dude, there is no reason you can't collect medical

> Because it's Anonymous. This is part of what it is. Sucks, but that's what it is. It's an important part. Dude, there is no reason you can't collect medical data responsibly and with respect to privacy. Cmon man. We do a whole lot of this, all over the place. They can, they just won't. > But there is solid science that backs AA. Even if it was started without a scientific underlying idea. > People love to bag out AA, but as your last line says it is working for some people, studies back this. It would be untrue and unfair to say that there's nothing to AA. It's been successful, but how successful? Compared to what? IMHO, the greatest aspect of its success is its ability to let people off the hook. This is just a way for politicians to throw some 'thoughts and prayers' at a hard problem and call it good. It's not good. It's not all bad, but you start digging into the social science research and there's a lot of progress that's been made since the 30's that AA just won't touch. AA isn't working for a whole lot of people. But it's cheap and it doesn't trigger certain populations within our democratic society, so it's gone on and on. I think we're running out of road here, but... well, we'll have to see.