“In the seventy-six years since AA was created, 12-step programs have expanded to include over three hundred different organizations, focusing on such diverse issues as smoking, shoplifting, social phobia, debt, recovery from incest, even vulgarity. All told, more than five… — Lance Dodes Copy Share Image
“Addiction is not a moral defect, and to suggest that does a great disservice to people suffering with this disorder.” — Lance Dodes Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share Image
