[Willingham]

It’s important to understand that all 12 step programs(all of which are based on AA) approach addiction as a spiritual disease, and the program offers a spiritual solution. 12 step programs also teach that addiction is a progressive disease, and there is no permanent ‘fix’, but rather a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of one’s spiritual condition. Here is a concise summarization of the 12 step design for living: ‘reverse selfishness, get out and help others’. According to 12 step programs, if you stop working the program, addiction will come back in full force.

[TechDebtDevin]

Its also important to understand the most of the successes sang by 12 step evangalists are coming from the <5% it works on.

Im not against it but it simply is not the only cure for addiction. In fact its provenly a very bad program for the 95% that cant hang.

Much better CBT and medical interventions out there and millions of people are told every year to ignore them because of 12 step evangalist.

If the west had the answer to addiction in the form of 12 step, we probably wouldnt have the highest rates of addiction in the world and is probably a sign of societal trauma that no amount of meetings is going to help.

[butlike]

The only thing that worked for me is 'trying to do better than I did the previous day' with the understanding it's not a linear curve, but a spiky graph that trends upwards.