Does AA really improve the chance of recovery?

Q: My friend told me that people who attend AA have a better chance of recovery than those who do not. Is this true?

A: This is a difficult question to answer as Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is outside of the professional community, and in general, the AA organization stays away from formal, professional research. However, there was a recent study that studied people who entered professional treatment. Subjects were studied for five years and broken down into low, medium and high attendees of AA meetings. There was also a group that initially attended a lot of meetings, but over time, their attendance decreased.

Researchers found that five years later, the rates of abstinence during the last 30 days varied across the groups: High attendees had rates of abstinence of 79 percent; medium attendees had rates of abstinence of 73 percent; those with a declining attendance had a rate of 62 percent; and those with a low rate of attendance had a rate of abstinence of 43 percent.

So clearly, higher attendance was associated with greater rates of abstinence. However, it must be remembered that this was a correlational study, meaning that there was an association between AA and rates of abstinence, but this doesn't prove that AA was responsible for the outcome. Another interpretation is that people who are highly motivated to stay abstinent attend AA, and those that aren't do not attend.

Regardless of the cause of the greater rates of abstinence among people who are high attendees, a suggestion to someone who wishes to quit drinking to check out AA is a wise decision.

Eagle-Tribune