Giving Compass' Take:

• According to a comprehensive study Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is an effective path toward sobriety for those dealing with addiction. 

• How are healthcare systems currently working with AA to get individuals experiencing addiction the help that they need?

• Learn more about addiction and recovery and how to make an impact.

After evaluating 35 studies—involving the work of 145 scientists and the outcomes of 10,080 participants—Keith Humphreys, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University, and his fellow investigators determined that AA was nearly always more effective than psychotherapy in achieving abstinence. In addition, most studies showed that AA participation lowered health care costs.

AA works because it’s based on social interaction, Humphreys says, noting that members give one another emotional support as well as practical tips to refrain from drinking.

“If you want to change your behavior, find some other people who are trying to make the same change,” he says.

Although AA is well-known and used by millions around the world, mental health professionals are sometimes skeptical of its effectiveness, Humphreys says. Psychologists and psychiatrists, trained to provide cognitive behavioral therapy and motivational enhancement therapy to treat patients with alcohol-use disorder, can have a hard time admitting that the lay people who run AA groups do a better job of keeping people on the wagon.

Early in his career, Humphreys says, he dismissed AA, thinking, “How dare these people do things that I have all these degrees to do?”

Humphreys notes that counseling can be designed to facilitate engagement with AA—what he described as “an extended, warm handoff into the fellowship.” For the review article, Humphreys and his colleagues evaluated both AA and 12-step facilitation counseling.

In the studies that measured outcomes other than complete abstinence, researchers found AA was at least as effective. For the studies that considered costs, most showed significant savings associated with AA participation: One found that AA and 12-step facilitation counseling reduced mental health costs by $10,000 per person.

Read the full article about the effectiveness of AA meetings from Stanford at Futurity.