AA spread like wildfire through a country desperate for…

“Addiction is not a moral defect, and to suggest that does a great disservice to people suffering with this disorder.”

— Lance Dodes

“More than anything, AA offers a comforting veneer of actionable change: it is something you can do.”

— Lance Dodes

“AA began as a nonprofessional attempt to grapple with the alcoholism of its founders. It arose and took its famous twelve steps directly from…

— Lance Dodes

“He also found himself increasingly resentful of the “tally system” that AA uses to measure sobriety: every time he “slipped” and had a drink,…

— Lance Dodes

“There is nothing inherently wrong with apologizing to those who have been harmed, directly or indirectly, by the consequences of addiction. The problem is…

— Lance Dodes

“Peer-reviewed studies peg the success rate of AA somewhere between 5 and 10 percent. That is, about one of every fifteen people who enter…

— Lance Dodes

“AA has managed to survive, in part, because members who become and remain sober speak and write about it regularly. This is no accident:…

— Lance Dodes

“Going to rehab” is likewise a common refrain in music and film, where it is almost always uncritically presented as the one true hope…

— Lance Dodes

“People suffering with addictions as a rule tend to be well aware of the many “wrongs” they have committed. Awareness of this fact doesn’t…

— Lance Dodes

“Every year, our state and federal governments spend over $15 billion on substance-abuse treatment for addicts, the vast majority of which are based on…

— Lance Dodes

“Alcoholics Anonymous was proclaimed the correct treatment for alcoholism over seventy-five years ago despite the absence of any scientific evidence of the approach’s efficacy,…

— Lance Dodes

“The degradation woven through these steps also seems unwittingly designed to exacerbate, rather than relieve, the humiliating feelings so common in addiction. If moral…

— Lance Dodes

“I have met and listened to a very large number of people who have “failed” at AA and some who continue to swear by…

— Lance Dodes

“AA makes inflated claims about itself. Its foundational document, Alcoholics Anonymous (commonly referred to as the “Big Book” and a perennial best seller), spells…

— Lance Dodes

“In 2006, one of the most prestigious scientific research organizations in the world, the Cochrane Collaboration, conducted a review of the many studies conducted…

— Lance Dodes