Attending AA Aids Abrupt End to Drinking
Exploring patterns of remission from alcohol dependence with and without Alcoholics Anonymous in a population sample.
Narratives provided by former heavy drinkers have indicated that respondents who attended the self-help fellowship Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) experienced more abrupt resolutions than respondents who never attended AA.
This study explored the extent to which this difference in resolution pattern exists in a representative sample of individuals remitted from a lifetime diagnosis of alcohol dependence.
The study used the 1990-1991 Mental Health Supplement to the Ontario Health Survey, a household survey that assessed the prevalence of psychiatric disorders, including alcohol dependence, among 9,953 respondents in Ontario.
Bivariate analyses were conducted comparing the characteristics for the 268 remitted alcohol-dependent respondents who had;
- never attended AA (n = 189),
- attended but not in the last year (n = 46), or
- attended in the past 12 months (n = 33).
There appeared to be a difference in the abruptness of resolution among those respondents who had remitted from alcohol dependence.
That is, respondents who had attended AA were more likely to have ended their heaviest drinking period and to have experience their last symptom at roughly the same age, as compared with those who did not attend AA.
The latter group displayed greater differences in the ages at which they experienced these two markers of remission, perhaps indicating a more gradual “drift” out of alcohol problems.
Research; Cunningham, J.A.; Breslin, F.C. Exploring patterns of remission from alcohol dependence with and without Alcoholics Anonymous in a population sample. Contemporary Drug Problems, 28(4):559-566, 2001. (166942)
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