Does AA Really Help Drinkers Stop?

12-step fellowships offer a way to reconcile shrunken resources with the desire to get more patients safely out of treatment. Accounting for the self-selection bias which has obscured AA’s impacts, this synthesis of US trials finds that attending more meetings after treatment boosts abstinence. Why then is research equivocal on whether promoting attendance significantly improves drink-related outcomes?

Involvement with Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) mutual aid groups is associated with better outcomes on alcohol-related, psychological, and social measures, but it has been unclear whether this correlation reflected AA’s effectiveness, or was merely an artefact of AA attracting drinkers who are more motivated to change, less troubled, or more socially stable, who would in any event have done better. Read on...