Mastodawn

Swiff, Archmage (Green)

Reminder that Alcoholics Anonymous is a Christian faith, not science, based organization that was founded in the 30s at a time when we understood almost nothing about the actual mechanical function of the brain and addiction, and that their 12 steps have become so ingrained in the US medical system and culture that most people and medical professionals dont realize there are other better researched options available now.

Swiff, Archmage (Green)Mar 27, 2021

Has AA helped some people, sure absolutely. But, call me a stickler, im very much not a fan of a program for overcoming addiction categorically claiming that anyone who the program doesnt work for just had something inherently sick and wrong about how they were born.

Maybe your Christian Group Huddle just isnt a one size fits all solution, dumbasses.

Swiff, Archmage (Green)Mar 27, 2021

“Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. There are such unfortunates. They are not at fault; they seem to have been born that way.”

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucccckkkkkkkkkkkk

Oooooffffffffffffffffffffffffff

Odo Tournesol Mar 27, 2021

@swiff plenty of more "scientific" paradigms for treatment have similar axiomatic nonsense at the bedrock. Look up ABA - a "treatment" for Autism that is still the primary in the West - and quotes from the founder if you want to make your skin crawl.

Psychology studies are mostly observational - expose people to a modality, track their success. It is hard to disprove psychological theories.

Odo Tournesol Mar 27, 2021

@swiff Hell, CBT, Family Systems Therapy, and Existential Therapy - 3 modalities of therapy taught and used widely - have entirely different core theories about the mind. All constructed basically the same way as AA.

Someone thought a lot, read books, and constructed a theory of the mind, and derived a solution from that theory.

Odo Tournesol Mar 27, 2021

@swiff We do not have the fidelity of imaging to disprove any of them, only observe their relative effectiveness.

All this to say I agree AA sucks, but if you think there is a more rationally proven model out there that has a stronger basis in brain scans and tested data about neurology you will be disappointed.

Swiff, Archmage (Green)Mar 27, 2021

@dualhammers no, but there ARE models out there that have statistically supported better efficacy than AA. We can get lost in the weeds of minutia and phrasing here, or we can move on understanding that im not claiming to be an addiction expert and am calling out a particularly monolithic organization in that realm.

Odo Tournesol Mar 27, 2021

@swiff Of course. I latched onto the phrasing because it is all I know about you and I took it in good faith you used the best phrasing you could to articulate your position.

in any event, I agree with the call out. It is important people understand the theory of mind behind any treatment before they submit to it

Swiff, Archmage (Green)Mar 27, 2021

@dualhammers thats legit, apologies if i bristled a bit. Good article recc too, ty

Odo Tournesol Mar 27, 2021

@swiff no worries. I understand a stranger entering your menchies with verbosity basically produces a pavlovian stress response in all of us veterans of online

Swiff, Archmage (Green)Mar 27, 2021

@dualhammers Oh to be sure, theres plenty of rackets taking advantage of people needing help.

Its just that AA is the biggest game in town, at least in the US, and is regularly recommended by doctors, medical professionals, and just the general populace: for many, myself included until relatively recently, the faith based parts of it are often not known, and its ubiquity gives the organization an air of legitimacy lesser known programs lack. Hence, the reminder

Odo Tournesol Mar 27, 2021

@swiff Yep, it is true that ubiquity is a heuristic for validity our brain uses a lot and does not always yield the best choices.

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/070674371205700604

Here's a review of psychosocial treatment systems - of which AA is one. The paper spends a bunch of words just explaining how difficult it is to compare effectiveness and collect good data

@swiff i knew AA was bad but wow this is fucked

Montessori Space Programme 🛸Mar 27, 2021

@swiff fuck AA

Doc Edward Morbius ⭕Mar 27, 2021

@swiff No True Alcoholic Scottsman....

Handler Jalter Mar 27, 2021

@swiff i mean its literally a drug, isn't going cold turkey exactly the opposite of the safest and most reliable way to end the addiction

Be Mar 27, 2021

@swiff This podcast radically changed my perspective on addition for the better.
https://drugpositive.org/dpp-13-kill-the-drug-warrior-inside-yourself

Drug Positive: DPP #13: Kill the Drug Warrior Inside Yourself

Last week Melania Trump spoke on the opioid crisis at Liberty University, the right wing Christian college founded by Jerry Falwell, the late fundamentalist evangelist. While claiming to be removing the stigma surrounding addiction, she and the other panelists couldn't conceal their moral judgment against drug users. In this episode we dissect the event, revealing the unconscious processes of scapegoating. And we interview the father of Integrative Harm Reduction Psychotherapy, Dr. Andrew Tatarsky, who teaches us what it really means to end stigma.

Digital Mark λ ☕️ 🚀 🌗Mar 27, 2021

@swiff Statistics show AA has a worse relapse rate than doing nothing. (On phone, but cites should be easy to search)

geet Mar 27, 2021

step one: admit that you are powerless over alcohol
step two: believe that a power greater than you can "restore sanity"

doesn't rule one imply that alcohol is a power greater than you?