AA and other meetings benefit variety of alcoholics
Study shows recovery not influenced by gender, religion and mental illness
Alcoholics Anonymous and other mutual -help groups seem to help people recover from alcoholism no matter what their religious beliefs and gender, or whether or not they have mental disorders, according a three-year study by PIRE Decision Sciences Institute.
Researchers studied 227 recovering alcoholics following treatment, and found that greater attendance of AA or other meetings resulted in improved rates of abstinence or in less intensive alcohol consumption in the event of relapse. These beneficial effects were not influenced by gender, religious preferences, psychiatric disorders or whether the patient had prior attendance at AA or other groups.
"Here's a widespread, chronic disorder that seems to respond well to an inexpensive resource - mutual-help groups such as AA," said Robert Stout, Ph.D., a co-author of the study and director of Decision Sciences Institute. "Not only do we need to get more addicts engaged in these groups, but we also need to gather evidence on this issue and make sure that the public, policy-makers and practitioners know about it."
The study is one of the few to examine the effectiveness of 12-step programs prospectively among different types of people with substance use disorder. The study assessed all types of addiction mutual-help groups that patients attended and found that patients mostly went to AA meetings, probably because they are more available.
