A.A. Recovery Outcome Rates

[dickb]

A.A. Recovery Outcome Rates

Dick B.
@ 2008 by Anonymous. All rights reserved

Are They “Contemporary Myth and Misinterpretation?”

Three A.A. gentlemen (one of whose historical work is well known to me and becoming more and more widely published) have written a ponderous article titled: “Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) Recovery Outcome Rates: Contemporary Myth and Misinterpretation,” January 1, 2008. And that’s a good thing because it keeps our members, history writers, and recovery workers thinking—I hope.

This will be a very short comment on the article because I have written extensively on the early A.A. fellowship and its documented, high recovery rates and I have written to a far lesser degree on the present-day recovery rates. I’m a researcher, a writer, an historian, and a man who has been in the trenches of A.A. for almost twenty-two continuous years. I’ve read the literature, attended thousands of meetings, and spoken all over the United States. Therefore, I’d rather have people read my documented, thoroughly-footnoted, and bibliographically helpful books, articles, and web postings than repeat all that here. However, I’ll list some principal sources at the end.

What A.A. Literature States

Before I make my comments, let’s consider three quotes from A.A. “Conference Approved” literature:

[In the Foreword to the Second Edition of Alcoholics Anonymous] “Of alcoholics who came A.A. and really tried, 50% got sober at once and remained that way; 25% sobered up after some relapses, and among the remainder, those who stayed on with A.A. showed improvement. Other thousands came to a few meetings and at first decided they didn’t want the program” (p. xx).

Is that true? I wouldn’t know. I have no data on that about which A.A. says: “Figures given in this foreword describe the Fellowship as it was in 1955” (p. xv). I just don’t know about 1955 or 1945, but I sure know about 1935-1937—the original program, the original Christian Fellowship, and the original forty pioneers whose names and sobriety records are well documented. If you read the “myth” article which is the subject of my comments, You will see that it can’t and doesn’t dispute the fact the 50% and 25% facts as related by the pioneers; it fails to see that the A.A. literature wasn’t writing about the pioneers. It was writing about 1955—twenty years after the pioneer years. And the article just ignores the difference.

The second quote popped up in a quote in Bill Wilson’s remark that can be found even in the Fourth Edition of Alcoholics Anonymous, published in 2001. It says (quoting Bill Wilson):

“Henrietta [Dotson—the wife of A.A. Number Three Bill Dotson], the Lord has been so wonderful to me, curing me of this terrible disease, that I just want to keep talking about it and telling people” (p. 191).

As the extensive research and documentation in the books of Richard K. of Massachusetts make clear, hundreds and hundreds of early AAs were quoted in newspapers across the United States in their statements that they had been “cured” of alcoholism by the power of God. They said that when they were following an entirely different program from the one now embodied in the Big Book and Twelve Steps. Now that statement really rankles those who favor a “higher power” that can be a light bulb, a rock, Gertrude, or a radiator. It also rankles those who belatedly characterized A.A. as “spiritual but not religious.” And it thoroughly upsets those who claim (correctly) that Bill said in the basic text pages that we are never cured of alcoholism (a statement contradicted frequently in the Big Book by the remarks of Bill himself, Dr. Bob, and A.A. Number Three). But instead of using the word cured, Bill adopted a “never cured” statement from a lay therapist who died drunk. And years later, A.A. chose to condemn “cure” in this strange quote in its DR. BOB and the Good Oldtimers:

“It might also be noted that many terms now considered by A.A.’s to be misleading were then used, not only by non-members discussing the movement, but sometimes by members themselves: “cure,” “ex-alcoholic,” “reformed alcoholic” (p. 136).

So, in 1980, some writer or editor in A.A. decided that Bill Wilson, Dr. Bob Smith, Bill Dotson, Dr. William D. Silkworth, Frank Amos, Clarence Snyder, and about two hundred AAs quoted in newspapers across the country had been “mislead” and had been stating falsehoods from 1935 to 1980. But that’s a tall tale to prove. I’ve quoted and documented the statements in several of my titles and so have biographers of Bill Wilson, Bob Smith, Clarence Snyder, and William Silkworth, M.D. And recently I acquired the actual manuscript of the Dr. Bob book with all the inked corrections, and we’ll see what it said before the page 136 footnote was added.

The Bible uses the word cure. Jesus used the word cure. Doctors use the word cure. Nurses use the word cure. Lawyers use the word cure. Nurses too. Even the dictionary. Were they all misled—even in 1935? You decide. What I know is that I followed the program of A.A. I was and am very very active in the trenches of A.A., particularly helping newcomers. I also studied the Bible as the early AAs did. I relied on the Creator as the early AAs did. And I’ve been “cured.” I think I know what that word means. It means cured. Again, cured!

Now about the rest of the myth article which make an attempt to establish that all the data about today’s substantially lower A.A. success rates is flawed. I leave the veracity and accuracy of that claim to all the psychiatrists, A.A. General Service workers, psychologists, scientists, grant makers, counselors, treatment professionals, and government employees who have sometimes said otherwise. What is the success rate in today’s A.A.? I have conducted no surveys myself. I have merely gone to thousands of meetings, heard A.A.’s own archivist Frank Mauser state to me that one-third are out of the door in ninety days and fifty percent are out the door in a year. I found that to be an accurate description in the California and Hawaii areas where my attendance was intense. I’ve had it confirmed by AAs all over the country. And as far as I’m concerned, fellow writers and fellow A.A. members can conduct as many surveys as they like to see how many AAs “make it.”

The difficulty with many of the surveys is their pre-occupation with “scientific method.” They don’t seem to care much for what they hear from the mouths of witnesses. This disdain for reliable accounts and writings by people of integrity is sometimes dismissed as merely “anecdotal.” A word that many an A.A. speaker probably doesn’t even understand as he honestly pours out his experience, strength, and hope in meeting after meeting. If the “proof” is not based on “double-blind,” “placebo controlled,” or some other worshippers of the microscope, I suppose it may not meet the standards of academia. So too with our cures by the power of God. Every effort used to be extended by writers to distinguish between organic (the bones which could be x-rayed or examined by microscope, etc) and functional (the maladies that were merely assuaged by talk or massage). The miraculous was not accepted. Or there were those who dismissed cures as “misdiagnosed” (and therefore not really what they were claimed to be) or the result of “spontaneous remission” (it would have happened with or without “Divine Aid.”). The same problem exists with the charts and exclamations of the “myth” proponents. They just don’t talk about God. They don’t talk about miracles. They excuse or rationalize or denounce the commonplace observations and accounts of both failures and successes. The problem for me, as to early A.A., is that I have seen the early hand-written written rosters. I have seen the hand-written address books. I’ve placed them in the library in East Dorset where all can see. I have looked at the newspaper accounts. These too are both in East Dorset and at A.A.’s World Services Headquarters. I have read the A.A. literature. I even have a copy of one of the original A.A. Big Book drafts which states in large letters on the front page, “Their Pathway to a Cure.”
The statement may or may not be correct, but you can’t deny the book cover language.

Now I’d be the last one in the world to claim that alcoholics don’t tend to grandiosity on occasion, even outright dishonesty. Hopefully, they overcome some of that as they “take” the Twelve Steps and practice the last three. But I have a lot of difficulty with casual dismissal of mounds and mounds of genuine evidence which is neither hearsay nor lacking in foundation. For example, I didn’t come in to A.A. to produce a statistic. I came in, did my best to follow today’s program, added to it the same prayers, Bible study, and reliance on the Creator that early AAs did; and I haven’t touched a drop of booze or swallowed any prescription sleeping pills from the first day. I have seen the evidence of early A.A. And I have watched present-day A.A. people who came in voluntarily, by court order, by treatment van, by referral of ministers and doctors. And I can’t find them. Neither will you. That doesn’t mean A.A. failed. It means A.A. has changed. And these people don’t want to quit—yet!

Some have called my 18 years of research and 31 published titles on our history “lacking in integrity,” the work of an “amateur,” the efforts of a “hobbyist,” and the product of someone with an “agenda.” Only one writer, accompanied by a few angry AAs, has pursued that course. But I don’t hear those accusatory remarks from the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of suffering and recovered folk who contact me in Maui each month and want to know more.

Agenda? Yes. I want people to know real A.A. history, surveys, statistics, and participation. And then decide for themselves if the A.A. path to a relationship with God is for them.

I can only say that since A.A. today keeps no rosters (though the early ones did), since members attend all kinds of different meetings (and sometimes give their opinion to the same survey from different meetings), and since the surveys themselves will not, for the most part, stand the test of sound statistical science, choose your own figures.

I like the statement in A.A.’s basic text: “Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path.” I followed it. I haven’t failed. That says nothing about my suffering comrades wandering in and out. But it defines for me my responsibility to reach out and help them if they want help.

Gloria Deo

dickb@dickb.com

[Colter]

I knew a guy one time that went on and on about being "cured", In fact he was so cured that he started drinking again. The experiment went so well that he began to drink more and more frequently. We would see him around town and he would tell various members how well the "cure" was working. One AA member, who was working in a restaurant-bar kinda place, noticed that the cured guy could even drink 7 drinks then successfuly leave.

Well, he's disappeared up north somewhere, his cure took him on to bigger and better things, I suppose.

I remember an old timer that would say he always wanted to remain a baby in AA. He died sober at 52 years of sobriety, never cured, just sober and happy.

I like the "new lease on life" term, our lease could be revoked and we get sent back to living in the third dimension.


C

[dickb]

The real joy in A.A. for me depends on how much time I am willing to spend helping others attain sobriety, learn the program and its history, and pass it on. Wo will be the day when we rest as meeting sitters and ignore the new person coming in the door. But well said that his fate, whether cured or recovered or in recovery, will depend on his willingness to go to any lengths to quit and get well. I remember an old-timer's comment when I spoke eloquently and at far too great lengths about the topic of "willingness." His comment: Willingness without action is fantasy. I suppose you could also phrase it as walking the walk instead of talking the talk. The missions would have said: "How many souls have you saved today." AAs might appropriately keep in mind; "How many drunks have you helped today." Aloha, Dick