Library - Videos. Alcohol Harm Reduction Support. LIVE AT HARRY'S LOFT (Ethan Persoff, Alternatives To Alcoholics Anonymous « The Alcohol Harm Reduction Blog. When the vast majority of Americans hear the words “drinking problem” the first and only thought which pops into their minds is AA.
Whereas it is true that AA has helped a large number of people become abstinent from alcohol, it has also become quite clear that AA is not a good fit for all problem drinkers. Brandsma (1980) has reported that forced AA attendance leads to increased binge drinking in a sample population. AA’s own “Triennial Surveys” (1990) report that only 5% of new AA members are still attending meetings at the end of one year. This number may be too low due to people moving to new cities, etc., but it is still suggestive that many new AA members soon leave. Hooked on addiction. 'One question dominates my life: will I slip and have another drink?' Sober without god. Search Engine for Evidence in Health and Social Care. The Sinclair method. SMART Recovery - A US Abstinence-Based Program. David Gilliver SMART Recovery is an abstinence program established in the US in the 1990s, using tools and techniques based on cognitive-behavioral principles.
Alcohol Concern has helped set up SMART Recovery projects in six pilot areas across England with Department of Health funding, and earlier this month mounted a conference to provide guidance for organizations that want to expand peer-support options in their area. Keynote speaker was SMART Recovery founding president, Dr Joe Gerstein. ‘SMART stands for Self Management and Recovery Training,’ he says. ‘The history goes back about 20 years. Those four key points are building and maintaining motivation to abstain; coping with urges; managing thoughts, feelings and behaviors, and lifestyle balance. Blamethenile's Channel. Skywiz1's Essay Collection - A Personal Journey. SMART Recovery UK. Review Sees No Advantage in 12-Step Programs. Last Drink to LA by John Sutherland (II)
It was drink or not drink time.
And the next drink, I feared, would be decisive. Last Drink to LA by John Sutherland. I touched bottom, as alcoholics like to say, on February 12 1983 (the date is slightly fuzzy).
I had just taken up a position as professor of literature at the California Institute of Technology. Caltech, as it is popularly known, is a small, excessively well-endowed science institution in Pasadena. Pasadena itself is a small, genteel western town, seven minutes away, by freeway, from downtown Los Angeles. LA is neither small nor genteel. The Caltech job was, in career terms, one of those lucky breaks of which you can normally expect two or three in a professional lifetime. The right call is rarely easy. Drink advice service confronts sex abuse. Vulnerable alcoholics seeking help for their addiction are being subjected to sexual and other abuse at the hands of long-serving volunteers from the world's largest alcohol support group.
An internal memorandum circulated to every Alcoholics Anonymous group in the country reveals that volunteer members are increasingly being investigated by police forces examining allegations of sexual abuse. It is impossible to quantify the allegations since AA is committed to anonymity and will not be drawn on any aspect of its work. But the document makes it clear the group's general service board has known of the problem for some time and feels it must be tackled at a national level. Ed Halliwell: Alcoholics Anonymous works for some, but left me feeling more depressed than when I started. This month marks 70 years since the bible of Alcoholics Anonymous – The Big Book - was first published.
The AA movement boasts 2 million members worldwide – there are 3,400 meetings every week in the UK, freely available to people willing to admit that their drinking has got the better of them. The AA programme has also been adapted for a range of emotional problems, from drug abuse and co-dependency to eating disorders, sexual compulsions, gambling and workaholism. It sounds laudable, and in many ways it is. There's no question that AA and its related fellowships have helped turn lives around, offering an alternative to people who have "hit bottom" thanks to their previous lifestyle choices. The patterns of behaviour that lead to self-destruction through drink, drugs or depression are powerful and persistent, and have to be challenged with robust new structures that promote healthier ways of being.
But 12-step groups aren't quite the mind shampoo their champions claim. AA Freethinkers. Nta_review_of_the_effectiveness_of_treatment_for_alcohol_problems_fullreport_2006_alcohol2.pdf (application/pdf Object) Welcome to Rational Recovery. Humanists Challenge Alcoholics Anonymous Monopoly. September 12, 2007 Today the American Humanist Association notified its members, local chapters, and allies nationwide that there is now a well-established legal precedent that Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous are "pervasively religious" recovery programs.
Moreover, government officials shouldn't specifically promote religious programs to the public, may not coerce incarcerated individuals into them, and may not sentence people to attend their meetings without offering a secular alternative. This action by the American Humanist Association comes in the wake of the September 7 decision by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco that the government can't force parolees to attend such programs as a condition of staying out of prison.
SMART Recovery is a worldwide, science-based, secular substance abuse recovery program that, from its inception, has been endorsed by the American Humanist Association and offered through many of its local chapters. Blamethenile's Channel.