Study Detects 'Heretics' Among the AA Faithful : Many one-time participants rarely attend meetings but believe the organization helps keep them sober.

Among erratic or former attendees of AA, no relationship could be seen between commitment to the core elements of the program and abstinence or a reduction in drinking, despite the fact that one in four said AA was “pretty helpful” or “very helpful” in helping them to combat their drinking problems.

In his interview, Dr. Tonigan said it is important to find out which elements of AA are successful and which are not, so that those elements can be integrated into therapy for people who choose not to remain in the formal AA program.

“We have a lot of work to do to understand why people move into, through, and out of AA, and why,” he said. “Is it the program that helps people stop drinking, or is it the fellowship? That's the $64 million question.”

One piece of advice he gave to clinicians was to suggest that patients sample several AA groups and not make a decision to quit based on a few meetings with one group. Some are highly structured and focused on formal AA principles; others offer relaxed fellowship and support. With more than 50,000 groups in the United States, people with a desire to stop drinking are highly likely to find a group with which they feel comfortable and can get the help they need, Dr. Tonigan said.

Program Focuses On 'Higher Power'

Eight of the 12 steps forming Alcoholics Anonymous' core framework mention a higher power, “God, as we understand Him,” and/or prayer. The 12 steps describe the experience of the organization's early members:

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Source: Alcoholics Anonymous