[sn_master]

I encourage anyone to attend a Narcotics Anonymous meeting at least once. They're all online now because of COVID, and you'll find ones specific to each city or state.

You don't have to be an addict to attend one and it'll help you greatly understand what people are going through.

[sneak]

I offer a counter to this: NA and its more famous cousin AA are faith-based, not evidence-based.

[sn_master]

"evidence based" is more appropriate term for a rehab center. NA/AA aren't meant to treat any one individual case, they're meant for people to vent and better themselves.

Addiction is both physical and mental, unlike cancer which is purely physical, and if faith could be weaponized properly to fight it, so be it.

And anyhow, I attended a few meetings and all the discussions were all about personal life troubles due to addiction or otherwise, and people asking and offering help.

In big cities it's very hard because of the variety of religions of people attending, it becomes very awkward to even try and push any one religious talk.

[cylon13]

Can you elaborate as to why you think someone should avoid going to NA or AA because it's not "evidence"-based? It's essentially just a community where people share stories and support each other, not some religious cult.

[monocasa]

I mean, like half of the twelve steps are all 'stop thinking and give yourself over to God because you're broken and can't save yourself, only adherence to the program and god can'. At least in the south I've seen them push the cult aspect of it hard.

1) We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.

2) Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3) Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

4) Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5) Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

6) Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

7) Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

8) Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

9) Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10) Continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.

11) Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

12) Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Like, there's a few good things in there, but you can say that about most cults.

[jfengel]

It varies a lot from meeting to meeting. Regional cultures may push the religious aspects more strongly, but other cultures take the "as we understood Him" part very seriously. That's a loophole that enables atheist approaches to AA.

It's still "culty" in the sense that they're explicitly seeking out desperate people. If you have an evidence-based way to manage your consumption of alcohol, by all means do it. Such routes help a ton of people, and they have no need of AA.

AA is for people who "hit rock bottom" after having tried everything else. It's that mechanism that appeals to nonbelievers: you realize that you can't trust yourself and are so desperate you'll try anything because the alternatives are worse (dying, or living in agony).

That won't work for everybody, either. It probably works no better than placebo. But if that's the placebo that works for you, then you've found something.

Not everyone in AA sees it as I've just described it. AA brings out the worst in some people. Going there is a choice you should take only when you're willing to risk that. But you do at least have some control over what meeting you find. Large cities especially will have lots of different meetings, and you keep looking around until you fine one that works for you.

I do need to put in a caveat: I'm not an alcoholic and I know AA only through people who are close to me. My description is secondhand at best. But it's a view that makes sense to me: it helps who it helps, and for those for whom it doesn't, find something else. Unlike other cults, it's not demanding your money or your recruitment efforts. (That's something they're very clear on regardless of the meeting; anybody evangelizing AA to any except the absolute most desperate is doing it wrong.)

[subsaharancoder]

Curious, which one of the 12 steps you've listed have a "cult aspect" to them? FYI Characteristics of a cult http://cultresearch.org/help/characteristics-associated-with...

[sn_master]

There is no requirement to follow the 12 steps. You can pick and choose or follow none at all and just do your own thing. No one ever gets "punished" because they didn't follow step whatever.

[jasonwatkinspdx]

It depends on the specific meeting, but yes, some of them are religious cults. Both my parents converted to evangelical extremism while attending AA. This has had a profound and negative impact on my life, as they forced me to go to an abusive mennonite school, among other problems too private to share.

I know some people have great experiences with these orgs, but I'd also caution people about how there are sometimes people with agendas exploiting the trust and vulnerability within these groups.

[Eric_WVGG]

When he said "evidence-based," he's referring to statistically recorded rates of recidivism.

You are correct, NA and AA are primarily social clubs, and there's no harm in that. But if the point is to recover from addiction, keep looking.

[sn_master]

recidivism rates are applicable to rehab centers which offer multi-week in-patient programs. they're all legally required to provide them, and most are pretty sad (50%+ is typical).

no one claims attending a meeting with a few random people and talking is a "recovery program" by any stretch of imagination. they're completely different things.

[sneak]

> no one claims attending a meeting with a few random people and talking is a "recovery program" by any stretch of imagination. they're completely different things.

In my experience that is a false claim: AA/NA proponents frequently assert that they can help you recover from addiction.

Their religion-based system has about the same probability of helping you recover from addiction as not going to AA/NA.

[placer]

>Their religion-based system has about the same probability of helping you recover from addiction as not going to AA/NA.

Not this again. We know for a fact that treatments which encourage people to be a part of AA fellowships result in a significantly higher rate of abstinence from alcohol. [1]

See Ycombinator discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22545557

This doesn’t mean AA is for everyone, but it does show that Alcoholics Anonymous is quite helpful for a significant subset of alcoholics.

[1] John Kelly, et. al. “Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12‐step programs for alcohol use disorder” Cochrane 2020 PMC7065341 (open access, no paywall: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7065341/ )

[siftyy]

Parent doesn't mention anything about the recovery rate, simply understanding what they're going through.

[sn_master]

recovery rate is more applicable to rehab centers, and those publish their recovery rates as required by law. Most are pretty sad (50% or more relapse is typical).

NA/AA meetings aren't meant to offer help to any one individual, rather group support to help those who want to better themselves make the right decisions, or to simply vent in-person out to others who won't judge them.

[travisporter]

This bothered me too (need to believe in a Higher Power), but they do have a statistically significant success rate versus no group therapy, which is a net benefit to society I think