
What If Addiction Is Not a Disease? - Hooke
http://chronicle.com/article/What-if-Addiction-Is-Not-a/237383
======
empath75
Most addicts quit on their own:

[https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200405/the-
surprisi...](https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200405/the-surprising-
truth-about-addiction-0)

The reason that addiction treatment programs find it so hard to treat
'addicts' is that they're dealing with the small subset of people who, for one
reason or another, can't quit on their own. It's sort of the opposite of
survivorship bias.

~~~
nerdponx
This is a good point, I never thought of it this way before. Then again, that
doesn't necessarily mean it isn't a disease.

However I've started to come to think of addiction notice a disease onto
itself, but as a symptom of some other underlying "dis-ease", clinical or
otherwise.

If anything, the debate over whether addiction is a disease underscores the
fact that the people having the debate have a very narrow definition of
"disease". If addiction isn't disease, then what is it?

~~~
MarkPNeyer
I went through an addiction myself and I agree with you.

Emotions are not super well understood, and I think they are at the root of
addiction. If you are chronically unhappy, drugs let you feel good. You start
feeling better because of the drugs, and lose the ability to respond to
negative emotion in a healthy way. Healthy emotional balance lets people make
good choices and fix bad problems. Being chronically unhappy - perhaps as a
result of unresolved mental injury - will hamper a persons ability to make
good choices, just like being keep in darkness for a log time will make your
eyes way too sensitive to handle normal light.

Show me someone who is addicted to drugs, and I'll show you someone who is
unhappy about something other than the drugs. The addiction just makes the
underlying problem worse.

If you can learn to fix the underlying problem, then fixing the addiction
itself is much easier.

Once you are knee deep in drugs, your life becomes awful which gives you more
reason to keep using the drugs. It's like a local minimum, or an AI that
learns to manipulate it's model of the world, because that's easier than
manipulating the world itself.

~~~
mjevans
I have similar beliefs (preference to a theory that appears to make sense to
me, but which I cannot readily find supportive scientific evidence for or
against).

I suspect that actually curing addiction, or many other mental diseases, will
require not just changes within, but also changes externally.

The sooner society can rid it's self of the blame culture, and adopt the more
pragmatic 'solve the problems' culture, the better.

~~~
nerdponx
And I guess this comes full circle back to the 12 Steps: powerlessness is one
way to achieve blamelessness

------
throwaway_6543
The first thing you hear when you go to many treatment centers is that
addiction is a disease. The 12 steps are posted on the wall and you are told
you are "powerlessness" over it. You will hear, "It's not a problem of
willpower." That idea will be driven into your skull many times.

I'm not sure I will ever understand addiction. But I know that when I accepted
personal responsibility for the things that I did to myself and others in
order to get drunk/high, life became a least a little easier. It's not
perfect, but to use AA terminology it's not "unmanageable" anymore, at least
not as much as it once was. And I am grateful to be where I am today. I guess,
for me, my compulsion to drink and drug was mainly caused by my surroundings
and upbringing.

Although I don't go to AA or NA anymore, if it is working for some, I hope
they see it through. Whatever is getting you through to the next day as an
alcoholic/addict, my advice is to keep doing it. Whether it is spiritual
cleansing or acceptance or doses of naltrexone/buprenorphine.

~~~
nerdponx
I just recently read the actual 12 Steps for the first time (mostly out of
curiosity) the other day, and was very surprised to find that the theme was
about admitting powerlessness and giving in to God.

I also think it's mistaken to conflate "power" and "willpower." It may indeed
not be a "problem of willpower", but that (at least to me) does not imply
total powerlessness over a disease state in one's own body.

~~~
throwaway_6543
The Big Book, as it is called, is pretty clear that, in the writers' opinions,
that only through a Higher Power does one become sober. The meaning of
powerlessness I think they intended is that without help an alcoholic will not
break the cycle. AA teaches that your sobriety depends on your connection to
that power. According to them, no amount of self-knowledge or desire to stop
will enable one to actually make an alcoholic/addict to put the stuff down. I
guess that's how I was intending to describe their version of powerlessness.
For me, I believe that was not the answer. I credit my sobriety to that I
realize things could be much worse. I am grateful to be where I am and know
that, on average, most people that have lived this life would not have made it
through or had a chance to even do so.

I honestly don't know if addiction is a disease. Certainly, anybody that has
had the dts or benzo/opiate withdrawal will admit that there is a physical
component to continued alcohol/drug abuse. I know many addicts (and myself was
one) that continued using longer than wanted out of here of withdrawal.

But I didn't need to completely "give in" or submit to the disease, at least I
think (others may be able to judge that better though). I wanted and still
want so bad to never have to go through some of the things an active addict
has to go through again that I am completely terrified to go out again. But at
an AA meeting they would probably say that that time will come if I do not
develop a spiritual connection to something greater than myself

------
klagermkii
> Researchers will track how various factors — including diet, sleep patterns,
> gender, race, economic circumstance, air quality, and exercise habits, as
> well as substance use — correlate with changes in the subjects’ brain scans
> over the years.

> "How cool will it be if we can collect data on 9- and 10-year-olds that will
> help predict how all young people will function in later life?" asks
> Garavan. "This is the sort of information that will truly help people
> parent, and legislate, and educate, and live healthy lives."

I'm not as enthusiastic about that future as Garavan is, and especially not
the idea that it could shape legislation in any kind of significant way.
Doubly so if it's going to be done via statistical models and correlation,
rather than a deeper understanding of the mechanisms involved.

~~~
srtjstjsj
Oh it could shape legislation: "low-functioning" children would be kicked out
of school, watched closely and sent to jail for their "anti-social"
tendencies, while "high-functioning" children will get expensive education,
and their mishaps forgiven.

~~~
dpark
I hate this cynical "they're trying to get us" view on politics and laws. Yes,
there's potential for misuse of data. There's also the potential for _correct_
use of data. It took scientific data to get leaded gasoline banned.

Opposing scientific studies because they could be misused is no better than
opposing scientific studies because they might not support your views. Both
cases are fundamentally anti-science and there are no bonus points for trying.
If you support science, then you support it. If you oppose science when it
might not yield the results you want, then you are anti-science and have no
place in a progressive society.

------
nhaliday
Scott Alexander wrote something short but sweet on these kinds of questions:
[http://lesswrong.com/lw/2as/diseased_thinking_dissolving_que...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/2as/diseased_thinking_dissolving_questions_about/)

~~~
firethief
Excellent article; expresses exactly why it drives me crazy to see people
arguing over a word. Also, it seems in this case the people who study brains
are saying it happens in the brain ("disease"); the people who study minds are
saying it happens in the mind (emotions etc): given that humans have been
aware for some time that the brain is the seat of the mind, it should be
obvious that the two possibilities not only aren't exclusive, but even cannot
occur independently. I guess they are so focused on their own areas of
expertise they apparently forget that the other field is looking at an equally
real aspect of the same phenomenon.

~~~
firethief
Now that I've finished reading the link I see that the determinism aspect is
discussed, but for the general public. In this case the people having the
disease debate are highly educated, many of them in hard-science fields; I
would assume most of them would claim to espouse the non-dualistic mind/body
model, yet participation in the debate requires not having fully internalised
the implications of non-dualism. I think this is explained by being too
entrenched in their own fields to see the whole picture. I've met a lot of
people working on advanced degrees who had forgotten swathes of the basics in
their own fields that weren't necessary to their specializations, let alone
survey courses from undergrad. Tunnel vision is the cost of focus.

------
tossaway456
Not seeing this here so I wanted point it out: from my own experience and 1st
hand witnessing in others, that addiction is a Symptom, not a disease.

Underlying _emotional pain_ is what causes people to literally self medicate.

This is not to say that substance abuse doesn't create actual physiological
necessities to then continually consume the substance. It does- i.g. body
stops producing it's own opioids when it starts to get them from the outside.

When someone begins using, then abusing, they are trying to relieve an
underlying issue. The action is a symptom of a deeper problem expressing
itself (the actual dis-ease). These issues are usually severely repressed and
suppressed, so much so that one cannot articulate them-- only medicate them.

Digging out and resolving the root emotional issues goes a long way to curing
someone. Afterwards, physiological damage still needs to be addressed.

~~~
posterboy
> trying to relieve an underlying issue

Often enough that might simply be hunger and thirst, eg with coffee and
cigarettes.

With other addictions a physical dependence is less apparent and I wondered
before, why obsessive compulsion is never mention in this regard. Take
gambling for example.

As the comment about rat-park points out, nicotine or opiate addiction do have
an extrinsic physical aspect. In any case, the internal chemistry always plays
a role.

------
cthalupa
Addiction is something that makes me fairly curious.

I smoked for about a year straight, and then one day quit cold turkey and had
no problems. I drink more than moderately - I'm a craft beer and whisky snob,
and my SO loves wine as well. Most weeks, I'll average at least one drink a
day, sometimes more. But sometimes I'll get busy and go a week, a month, with
nothing or barely anything to drink across the period without really feeling
the need to drink any more.

I've done a variety of drugs, and much the same - never felt an urge to do
anything beyond mild recreational use.

Yet I'm completely and totally addicted to the internet. I am basically
nonfunctional after prolonged lack of connectivity. if kept busy, I can go a
weekend, but an unplugged camping trip for a week is a completely unpalatable
idea for me.

------
ktRolster
I kind of agree with this quote from the article (even though the article
slants against this viewpoint):

 _ultimately I should be able to replicate your findings and you should be
able to replicate my findings, otherwise it’s not science, it’s bullshit. "_

I absolutely, 100% support searching for alternative methods to help people
who are drowning and suffering in addiction, but if a method doesn't work,
there's no point in following it.

~~~
cbsmith
...except "method doesn't work" really just means, "generally doesn't work for
people who are classified as having the same problem as you", and when all the
other approaches that _are_ classified as working for that group are, you
start to consider the possibility that you are an outlier and some of these
other options might work. It's a desperate move, but given the high failure
rates and low understanding we have of the problem, I wouldn't categorically
say there is "no point in following it".

~~~
ktRolster
Sure, if you find something that works for you, then good job, do it.

------
bane
Here's an interesting idea. What if addiction is not something that falls on
the binary classification of "choice|disease"? What if it's some other kind of
phenomenon?

~~~
freyr
The article isn't about classifying addiction as disease or "choice." The
debate is between disease and "not disease."

~~~
vasilipupkin
seems like a debate about semantics. Why can't the answer be a multi-variate
model in which disease like factors get a weight and non-disease like factors
get some kind of a weight? What's the point arguing about these non continuous
binary options?

~~~
ktRolster

      >seems like a debate about semantics.
    
    

The article specifically addresses that point:

 _a slim majority of the panelists, including Murphy, did not want to
emphasize the word "disease," because it implies that chemical dependence is
primarily a function of pathology, when in fact environmental factors
(dysfunction at home, stress at work), learned behavioral patterns (binge
drinking, for instance), and economic disparities have been shown to play a
significant causal role. Clearly, the debate was not just semantic._

~~~
posterboy
_environmental factors (e.g. bad air), learned behavioral patterns (hygiene)
and economic disparities (to afford a doctor)_ all play a role in the course
of a lung infection, even leading to death, too. I don't think it isn't a
prime example of a disease.

~~~
vasilipupkin
understood. But what matters to me when I am in the hospital with a lung
infection is how to treat it so that it goes away, not what it's called

------
force_reboot
It's natural for compassionate people to prefer to characterize addition as a
disease, because it gives a powerful argument for treating people with
addiction compassionately. But this is deriving an "is" from an "ought".

In fact its very common in this kind of discussion to see an argument like "If
you believe <positive statement> then you must support <morally abhorrent
policy>". But mostly the morally abhorrent policy doesn't actually follow from
the positive statement, and if the person making this argument were forced to
accept the positive statement, they would not in fact support the policy. In
this debate

    
    
      <positive statement> = addiction is not a disease
    
      <morally abhorrent policy> = people with addiction don't deserve any sympathy or help

~~~
posterboy
There's no positive statement, there's a not in there. I do believe this makes
a difference.

~~~
force_reboot
when I say "positive statement" I mean in the positive/normative sense.

------
andres_kytt
From system thinking perspective, addiction can be described pretty well with
a fairly simple model of a few feedback loops. Regardless of the exact
feedback structure, the mechanisms are both social and bilogical, human
biology will get hurt in the process and the entire thing is likely to behave
chaotically. This is why you can argue it's a disease (because you get
biological causes and effects) and that it's not (because AA works by
providing a balancing loop designed to be tolerant to substance abuse). And
this is why you probably won't get to a clean medical diagnosis - a very
similar set of factors can lead to a wide range of outcomes. Unless addiction
is seen as a systemic issue, I can't really see how it could be better
understood beyond describing less and less significant factors in more and
more detail.

------
richcollins
A lot of formerly beneficial adaptations have become "diseases" in the modern
world (sugar cravings for instance).

------
vintermann
> the authors of AA’s Big Book, first published in 1939, helped reduce the
> stigma of addiction

A truth with modifications. It both individualized alcoholism, and made it
more acceptable in a sense. Before, alcoholism wasn't a thing, "drunkenness"
was, and it was societies that had a drunkenness problem, not individuals.

------
kevindeasis
In A Nutshell, has a nice [video] about addiction:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ao8L-0nSYzg&feature=youtu.be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ao8L-0nSYzg&feature=youtu.be)

Note: below is a link from reddit about their opinions from the video (maybe
or maybe not they are actually a neuroscientist ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ )

[https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/3qp6sa/everything_w...](https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/3qp6sa/everything_we_think_we_know_about_addiction_is/cwhbg8b)

------
justratsinacoat
>ctrl+f "rat park"

Not found!? Well, I'm just the motile conglomeration of vermin for the job!
"Rat Park", a utopia for rats, is (IMO) a critical component of the pushback
against the disease model of addiction. An illustrated summary can be found in
this lovely comic [0], while more interested parties can peruse the works of
Dr Bruce Alexander, in the form of a blog-retrospective [1], or a slightly
more technical presentation to the Canadian Senate [2], or his excellent book,
_The Globalization of Addiction: A Study of Poverty of the Spirit_ [3].

A layman-readable synthesis goes something like this: folk wisdom holds that
some drugs are insanely addictive, as an inherent property of the drug. But
this has generally [4] been borne out by introspective interviews of
inveterate drug abusers and highly technical experimentation on lab animals
(mostly social animals, like primates and rats). Introspection, for most
domains of psychological study, is never used and treated as hearsay (it's not
a contentious claim in psychology that people aren't good at examining their
own mental states in a scientifically useful way). The methods of the
experiments on social animals like rats and primates often dictate cramped,
isolated and impoverished conditions. The "Rat Park" study took normal lab
rats and placed them in an enormous array filled with nesting-boxes, large
open areas, wheels and toys. The control rats, by contrast, were treated in
every way identically to a standard addiction study -- tiny cage, no comforts,
no stimulation but for a human changing their litter tray. Various experiments
ensued, but even with different experimental treatments, the researchers
couldn't induce addiction in the rats of Rat Park, while even fiercely bitter,
heavily-diluted morphine-water was the choice of the isolated, imprisoned rat.

The orthodoxy of invincible permanent addiction was vanquished in these
animals (and the minds of the researchers), by providing a more stimulating,
spatious environment filled with fellow rats with whom to interact. This might
say something important about the nature of addiction in other social animals,
like humans.

[0] [http://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comics_en/rat-
park/](http://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comics_en/rat-park/)

[1] [http://www.brucekalexander.com/articles-speeches/rat-
park/14...](http://www.brucekalexander.com/articles-speeches/rat-
park/148-addiction-the-view-from-rat-park)

[2]
[http://www.parl.gc.ca/content/sen/committee/371/ille/present...](http://www.parl.gc.ca/content/sen/committee/371/ille/presentation/alexender-e.htm)

[3]
[https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=The+Globalisation+of+Ad...](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=The+Globalisation+of+Addiction:+A+study+in+poverty+of+the+spirit&hl=en)

[4] It IS true that you can see pretty drastic rewiring in the ventral
tegmental area (which covers, generally, reward systems, drug addiction,
strong emotions) with things like nicotine and cocaine, so the picture is
probably more complicated than 'it's purely a social problem', but the
ascendancy of the dogma of the disease model of addiction functionally
prevents further study. Note that the Rat Park paper was very difficult to
publish and received no attention for years.

~~~
forkandwait
I think lack of stimulus at work is why addiction is (mostly) a poverty
problem. I have even worked at factories where people got high to get through
an inhumanely boring day.

~~~
yusee
Flourishing requires more than wealth. Think of all the celebrities who have
struggled with addiction.

Suffering is a human universal.

~~~
forkandwait
I didn't say lack of wealth, I said lack of stimulus at work. I don't actually
believe that wealth makes you flourish.

------
topspin
Transmogrifying destructive habits into `disease' is public policy, and there
is far too much establishment invested to tolerate this blasphemy. One can
easily picture the furrowed brows of our elites as they quietly note the names
of the latest additions to the unwritten list of pariah.

------
sjg007
There are opioid antagonists that reduce cravings and drug and alcohol use.
That combined with CBT or other therapies can help people move from a state of
suffering as part of the disease towards remission.

------
tcj_phx
The idea that addiction is a disease was reinforced by decades of trying to
help people with strategies that don't work. ... Pellagra is only cured with
Vitamin B3; scurvy is only cured with Vitamin C. Treating diseases of
nutritional deficiency with anything but the missing nutrients is an exercise
in futility.

Addictions are not simple like Pellagra or Scurvy, but when you figure out
what a specific person actually needs, they can rapidly recover. I've done it
twice - my alcoholic friend is doing quite well; my poly-addict
(opiates/cocaine/alcohol) would be doing quite well if she hadn't been
captured and court-ordered to endure palliative Psychiatric treatment.

The Alcoholic became an alcoholic when she discovered that Vodka helped her
anxiety more than Xanax. Benzodiazepienes lose effectiveness after about 4
weeks - when a person who is addicted to this class of drugs tries to quit,
their anxiety is worse than it was before. She was peri-menopausal at the
time, which was probably a huge factor...

As for the poly-addict.... When I met her, I said to myself, "this woman is
'high as a kite'..." As the months went by, she gradually invited me into her
world, and I learned that she really was self-medicating with the street
pharmacy.

She latched on to me like a life preserver. After almost six months of my
influence, and a little non-quantifiable hocus-pocus, she called to share
three insights, spread over 3 days:

    
    
      - "I wish I wasn't a drug addict..."
      - "I should only use substances which are legal!!! *Alcohol is legal...* "
      - "I hate methadone, I hate everything about it."
    

Before these insights, drugs were fine, because they'd always been there to
help when she was suicidally depressed. Her alcoholism started a month after
she began treatment with Methadone... The problem with methadone is that it
has all of the addiction of heroin, but none of the thrill.

So after six months, she was doing rather well. But alcohol is hard to kick on
your own, and she was taken to the hospital as "psychotic"... The
psychiatrists got hold of her - it's been a disaster. . They pretend that the
symptom of withdrawal from substances ("psychosis") justifies the use of so-
called anti-psychotics in perpetuity. Robert Whitaker has looked at the
evidence, and has concluded that there is no benefit to the routine use of
these drugs [1]...

[1] [http://www.madinamerica.com/wp-
content/uploads/2016/07/The-C...](http://www.madinamerica.com/wp-
content/uploads/2016/07/The-Case-Against-Antipsychotics.pdf)

The mental health field needs a clean-sheet redesign. Nothing else will help.

(edits: formatting, clarity )

------
galuggus
One thing that has always puzzled me.

If addiction is a disease why wait for an addict to hit rock bottom?

Would you wait for a diabetic/heart disease patient to hit rock bottom before
treatment?

~~~
vibrato
If they deny the problem and refuse treatment, what else can you do? The rock
bottom part is usually the catalyst to change their view (for a moment).

------
pcvarmint
There needs to be a distinction made between addiction and dependence, neither
of which necessarily implies the other.

Dependence is when your body depends on a substance (generated internally or
externally), and suffers withdrawal when it's missing.

Addiction is any repetitive self-reinforcing behavior.

Whether an addiction is "good or bad" is a value judgment which is very
dependent on sociocultural and legal context.

Going to work every day to a job you love, can be considered a "good
addiction". Same for a "runner's high".

Addiction occurs when the behavior is self-reinforcing and other behaviors of
the same or less cost cannot produce the same relative reward that the
addictive behavior does. The reward can be decreased pain, distraction from
stress, euphoria, or other conditions which subjectively feel better than the
status quo. Usually this means there's a stressful situation or lack of
pleasure in the status quo. Addiction can be viewed as a rational economic
decision based on limited information or time preference, with benefits and
costs which are totally subjective to the addict. The benefits and costs do
not need to appear to be rational to an outside observer, who has different
subjective values and time preferences. [5]

The AA model of complete abstinence and submitting to a higher power is bad
for several reasons: It can trigger painful or life-threatening withdrawal
symptoms; it denies the person the power to control their addiction, causing
learned helplessness; and it does not allow the person to learn to moderate
their own addiction.

People behave rationally towards satisfying their addiction, such as by taking
complex steps to buy drugs, and they rationally avoid law enforcement and/or
medical intervention which prevents them from satisfying their addiction.
Their behavior may not be legal, wise, moral or safe, but it is rational
towards their immediately perceived needs. They are not hostage to a "disease"
which makes them behave uncontrollably, like a seizure does. A disease does
not involuntarily make one correctly drive a car down a complicated route to
satisfy an addiction. Addiction is a choice. [0] [1] [2]

To say "addiction is a choice" does not imply any moral failing of the addict.
In societies where addiction is not tolerated and is viewed as a moral
failing, this can either help or hurt the addict, depending on their
temperament and situation.

Conversely, saying "addiction is a disease, and not a choice" does not help a
person gain control of their addiction, and it delivers an underhanded moral
judgment against them, similar to calling someone a sinner but praying for
them.

In some societies, ingesting psychotropic substances like coca tea is common,
even among children, and does not generate social stigma. There's also not an
expectation of intoxication, which decreases the somatic effect it has on the
person, and lowers its addictive potential. Zinberg called this "Set and
Setting" [3].

In societies where certain behaviors are severely punished, there can be a
higher rate of addiction, because of the "forbidden fruit" syndrome, and
because the addictive behavior is one of only a few ways out of an seemingly
oppressive situation, giving the person a temporary feeling of self-control.

The disease model of AA is unscientific. It presupposes a biological disease,
without any demonstrable etiology or mechanism.

When addiction researchers describe changes in body chemistry, MRI scans,
etc., they are rarely controlled experiments, so it is uncertain whether the
observed changes are due to: 1) random variation among the population, 2) a
preexisting condition which increased the chances of the addictive behavior,
3) a symptom of the addictive behavior itself, 4) the effects of (sometimes
involuntary) medical treatment post-addiction, or 5) the stress of simply
being tested. [4]

Addiction is a learned behavior which provides a temporary subjective reward
over not doing the behavior. There is no disease or involuntary lack of
control over the behavior. The reward is extremely subjective, and depends on
the biology of the person, their social/psychological state, the effects of
the behavior on the person's biochemistry, and the social/legal consequences
of others learning about their addiction. Everyone will value the multitudes
of factors differently. But they always make the final decision of whether to
continue the addictive behavior or not.

[0]
[https://www.amazon.com/dp/081269404X](https://www.amazon.com/dp/081269404X)

[1] [http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/addiction/addiction-
choice](http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/addiction/addiction-choice)

[2] [http://www.macleans.ca/society/health/addiction-new-
research...](http://www.macleans.ca/society/health/addiction-new-research-
suggests-its-a-choice/)

[3] [http://www.psychedelic-library.org/zinberg.htm](http://www.psychedelic-
library.org/zinberg.htm)

[4] [http://www.thecleanslate.org/myths/addiction-is-not-a-
brain-...](http://www.thecleanslate.org/myths/addiction-is-not-a-brain-
disease-it-is-a-choice/)

Edit: Added:

[5] [https://www.wiso.uni-
hamburg.de/fileadmin/bwl/rechtderwirtsc...](https://www.wiso.uni-
hamburg.de/fileadmin/bwl/rechtderwirtschaft/institut/Materialien/Mikro/Becker_Murphy__a_theory_of_rational_addiction.pdf)

------
douche
The AA model of embracing helplessness needs to die in a fire. I've never seen
such a depressing pseudoreligion, denying people agency in their own lives,
promoting a bizarre sort of monasticism (if you actually do the stepwork as
fanatically as you're _supposed_ to).

~~~
hermannj314
I have been to AA, it was not for me for the reasons you mention, also I
received thinly veiled threats when they found out I was an atheist (making it
clear I was not welcome if my personal "God" wasn't literally the Christian
God).

However, that doesn't mean AA doesn't work for some people.

I have read somewhere it has a 10% success rate, so we can't ignore that for
some people, as flawed as it might seem to some, it does work.

~~~
randomflavor
Anyone that talks about AA like this isnt really doing what AA is... the
helplessness thing also isnt true.

Powerlessness is just about "I dont have power over X" where x=other people,
other circumstances, etc etc.

All you have power over is your OWN actions. And thru that you gain immense
power.

The steps are just about clearing out the shitty character your developed
lying and cheating your way to get high/drunk... So you can start making
decisions without trying to cover up 100 other shitty decisions.

The higher power thing is just about not being so self centered and framing
the world from a point of view where the addict isnt in the center of it, but
a participant equal to all others.

Theres lots of crazy everywhere, and AA attracts alot of them. But people who
have found true freedom outside of addictions thru the process. And many
people just build new frameworks to be assholes with.

------
posterboy
The Chronicle? Who wrote the article, dr dre?

~~~
posterboy
Oh come on. I can't yet downvote articles and posting comments while not
upvoting the title is my vent, but if I'm being down voted I will have to
continue.

~~~
TylerE
No one can downvote articles.

~~~
posterboy
I expected to be downvoted anyway

