Summary: Yes, if you want to quit drinking, AA does really work, and the way AA works best is in combination with evidence-based professional support for alcohol addiction.
Key Points:
- Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is the first peer support group dedicated to helping people achieve abstinence and sobriety from alcohol.
- AA meetings leverage the power of the collective wisdom of a group of people with common experiences working toward a common goal: a life without alcohol or drugs.
- AA founders pioneered the 12-Step model of addiction recovery
- Although AA makes spirituality a central component of addiction recovery, you do not have to be religious to benefit from AA.
How Do People Stop Drinking?
When someone thinks of quitting alcohol or drugs, nine times out of ten the first thing that pops into their mind is Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). That’s because when AA began in the 1930s, it was the first organized system created by alcoholics, for alcoholics, to help them quit drinking alcohol. AA was not the first organized movement to help people with problem drinking – those appeared in the 19th century – but it was the first that sought to help people through community and fellowship.
Whereas the early temperance and abstinence movement sought to remove people with drinking problems from society and place them in reformatories, sober houses, or homes for inebriates in order to treat them for their disease, the founders of AA realized the best way for a person to stop drinking was to welcome them to a supportive group of like-minded individuals who shared one common goal: to achieve sobriety through abstinence from alcohol.
That’s how the community support model of treatment for addiction began.
It’s the same Twelve Step model is in use around the world today. AA has chapters in almost every country, and a global membership of over two million people. Experts debate AA’s effectiveness, and research over the past fifty years shows mixed results. Some studies say AA works, some say AA doesn’t work, and others say AA works in combination with other treatments, such as lifestyle changes, therapy, and in some cases, medication. However, the latest research on AA, published by Stanford University in 2020 – which included data from 27 studies containing over 10,000 participants – concludes that AA and other Twelve Step programs are more effective than other established treatments for increasing abstinence from alcohol.
The Stanford Study: Outcomes
- Participation in AA increased total days of abstinence
- AA participants drank less overall when they didn’t achieve full abstinence
- Participants in AA, combined with professional support such as therapy and counseling, spent less money healthcare than those who didn’t participate in AA
The Stanford study shows that AA not only works to help achieve abstinence, but in coordination with other psychosocial supports, may also be more cost-effective.
How Do Twelve Step Programs Work?
During a Twelve Step recovery program, people participate in group meetings with others who are in recovery from an alcohol or substance use disorder. There a Twelve Step support groups for intoxicants other than alcohol: Narcotics Anonymous (NA) and Cocaine Anonymous (CA) are two of the most well-known. While NA and CA are not identical to AA, they follow the same general pattern. Members meet regularly – sometimes as often as twice a day – to share their experiences and discuss their successes and challenges in recovery. With group help and support, they work their way through each of the twelve steps. To learn more about what each step entails, visit the Alcoholics Anonymous website.
The Power of Community
One thing people learn when they enter treatment for AUD or SUD is that recovery is a lifelong journey. In comparison to their entire life, the time they spend in treatment is relatively short. That’s why treatment centers focus on building simple, effective, and durable skills that people in recovery can learn quickly and use right away. That’s also why community support programs like AA are almost always a part of treatment for alcohol and substance use disorders. When people enter treatment, they often need to rebuild their lives from the ground up. This means creating an entirely new social network and learning ways to socialize and have fun that don’t revolve around alcohol or drugs.
Community support groups provide both: a group of people with shared values – sobriety and abstinence – and a group of people with whom they can socialize without feeling left out because they don’t drink or do drugs.
Here’s a definition of recovery developed by the National Institute of Health (NIH):
“A process of change through which individuals improve their health and wellness, live a self-directed life, and strive to reach their full potential.”
The NIH identifies four components that support a life in recovery, one of which is community, which they define as:
“Relationships and social networks that provide support, friendship, love, and hope.”
Community support groups provide those relationships and those networks. Participating in community support groups does not mean people in recovery have to become outgoing, talkative socialites. It simply means that if they add people in recovery to their social network – even just one – they increase their chances of achieving sustained sobriety.
The Power of Hope
A study conducted in Poland in 2022 shows how the subjective effect of community support promotes two personal factors that are essential to long-term recovery: hope for the future and meaning in life. The goal(s) of quitting drinking are abstinence and sobriety, which contribute to the goal of recovery: total health and wellbeing.
The World Health Organization (WHO) defines health as follows:
“Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”
They further define mental health in the context of overall health:
“Mental health is a state of well-being in which an individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and is able to make a contribution to his or her community.”
Therefore, we can understand that one way to look at recovery is that it’s more than the absence of alcohol or drug use:
Recovery is more than surviving without using alcohol or drugs: it’s thriving as an individual and as and integral part of a community of friends, neighbors, peers, and family.
The study “The Beneficial Role of Involvement in Alcoholics Anonymous for Existential and Subjective Well-Being of Alcohol-Dependent Individuals? The Model Verification” reviewed dozens of studies onthe effect of AA participation on qualitative factors in the lives of people with alcohol addiction.
The research team showed that participation in AA can increase and improve:
- Existential well-being, including:
- Hope
- Meaning in life
- Subjective well-being, including:
- Increased life satisfaction
- Improved mood
The mechanism by which people improved existential well-being and its subcomponents, and subjective well-being and its subcomponents was identified as the community offered by participation in AA meetings.
Why Does AA Really Work? Community, Hope, and You
A thoughtful and clear-eyed examination of how addiction treatment helps people achieve long-term sobriety, abstinence, and recovery shows the following:
- A combination of methods offers the best chance of a successful recovery
- Therapy, counseling, and medication – if needed, particularly when indicated to mitigate the effects of withdrawal – help you through the intrapersonal and physical challenges of recovery
- Peer support, in the form of AA and other 12-step approaches, can restore your sense of hope and meaning in life
Rediscovering a tangible sense of hope and reconnecting with a sense of meaning in life are essential components of successful, long-term recovery. Peer support groups can do exactly that: they provide compassionate support and practical wisdom that can help you through hard days, help you celebrate the good days, and keep you on track so you can meet and manage all the days to come with the knowledge and strength you need to stay on your program and thrive in recovery.
