Online alcoholism groups supplement AA meetings

Some call it "staying cyber." Playing off "staying sober," the unofficial motto of alcoholics, it's the growing trend of Internet sites that offer services to problem drinkers. A Google search of "online alcoholics" produced more than 80 screens of related sites. One group even is called "Staying Cyber."

Today "The Big Book," Alcoholics Anonymous's guiding text, is available in its entirety online.

But just how effective is an online version of a program for which face-to-face fellowship is one of its bedrock principles?

Some people in Gainesville who work with alcoholics say online programs have limited value. While anything that helps an alcoholic avoid taking a drink is a good thing, they say, the online programs simply can't provide the element many alcoholics feel is the key to sobriety - interpersonal contact with others recovering from the disease of alcoholism.

"I've treated thousands of people for alcoholism, and there's a real magic and power in the room (of Alcoholics Anonymous meetings) that you need to witness," said Scott Teitelbaum, co-medical director of the Florida Recovery Center at Shands at Vista in Gainesville.

"You can see it in the eyes of recovering people," he said. "That's something you can't get on a computer."

The national AA group was slow to embrace the online structure, but eventually did, said "Glen," a member of the public-information committee of the Online Intergroup of Alcoholics Anonymous. The organization was formed in about 1994 to serve all online AA groups.

Glen said he speaks not for AA, but only as an individual and a recovering alcoholic. Although hard numbers are impossible to track, he estimated the number of people who visit online alcoholics sites as at least 1.5 million.

"The advantage of online, I think, is that people come in sooner and identify their problem sooner," said Glen, who first started visiting Internet sites in 1997. "I think many people come to us long before they go into a room and say they have a problem."

He said one of the chief functions of the Internet sites is to get alcoholics together to communicate. That's done through e-mails, chat rooms and other online forums. Glen said, however, that AA emphasizes that visitors to online sites need to go to face-to-face meetings because all the help they need isn't available on the Internet.

"Hiding behind the computer screen is a bad thing," he said.

Nonetheless, he said, he estimates that about 5 percent of people use only the online groups to stay sober.

"But most use it to supplement their participation in the AA program," Glen said.

"Ed," a member of one of Gainesville's AA groups, said he was "a drunk" for 43 of his 65 years. He's been sober the last six, and he said he knows he couldn't have stopped drinking without the fellowship he found at AA meetings.

"I've heard of the online (groups), and anything productive that helps an alcoholic not to drink has my vote," he said. "However, it is my absolute conviction that attending meetings in person and having a personal sponsor is the most workable combination to help an alcoholic not to drink.

"One of the maladies of our disease is that we are constantly looking for cop-outs to drink 'safely,' but that will never happen for an alcoholic," Ed said. "There is a craving when we have one drink in our body. And when you get to that point where the pendulum swings and the 'what-ifs' start happening, you can call another alcoholic and he can talk you through it."

Ed said only occasionally are the online alcoholism sites mentioned during AA meetings he attends. He called himself something of a technological "dinosaur" and, although he has a computer, he doesn't use it for support in staying sober.

"Our basic principle is to totally change the person, and that demands a lot of eye-to-eye, personal contact," he said. "In the company of other AA members, there seems to be a broad understanding when you share your experiences."

Beth Shubert, a licensed clinical social worker in private practice in Gainesville, has worked with alcoholics for 30 years. She agreed with Ed that the personal interaction is indispensable in the treatment of alcoholism.

She said the online chat rooms and other forums offered by online alcoholism groups can't offer the kind of personal contact found in in-person meetings.

"I've known people who ended up in chat rooms and they said they felt really uncomfortable," Shubert said. "The basic program of AA is personal contact that is based on anonymity. And online, you're not always anonymous. And there's no way of screening people online to know if you're dealing with someone who is truly an alcoholic or in recovery."

But wouldn't an online service be useful to people who are very uncomfortable standing in front of others and baring their souls?

"We're not looking to make it comfortable," Shubert said. "Being uncomfortable is part of what has to happen to begin recovery.

"I know the chat rooms are out there," she said. "But the last person I asked about them, who had 14 years of sobriety, said the chat rooms were very unsatisfying. The only thing I've seen work in all my many years of treating alcoholism is people having been involved in that spiritual connection you only get in meetings and with a sponsor."

Teitelbaum said one of the ways of overcoming any anxiety - including sharing your experience with alcoholism with others in a closed meeting - is through exposure therapy. When you expose yourself to the source of your anxiety, he said, you can come to terms with it.

He said he doesn't want to suggest that online alcoholism groups are useless.

"They're a good augmentation for people who can't always get to a meeting," Teitelbaum said. "But I think in and of itself it is inadequate."

The Gainesville Sun