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I stumbled upon an interesting piece in Discover Magazine over the weekend, and I included the LINK HERE.
To summarize quickly, a massive study found that 12-step recovery works better than other forms of addiction treatment. As someone who is a big fan of 12-step recovery, that was music to my ears. But I also am not someone cheering for 12-step recovery like it’s my favorite sports team or anything. I personally think there are many different ways to get sober or participate in harm reduction programs… they’re just not my preferred method for not drinking until I puke every day.
To unpack the study further, here are some details that stood out to me. This study was basically a study of other studies—it combined findings and data from 35 different studies into one big study. That big study included data from 145 different scientists and over 10,000 people with alcohol issues. That is a giant study!
With the 10,000 participants, they had been randomly assigned treatment plans, and then the scientists tracked success rates of the various treatment programs. Here’s a quote from John Kelly, the Harvard professor at the center of organizing this study. He said 12-step programs were “dramatically better when you’re talking about remission, sustained remission and complete abstinence over many years… It can also reduce craving, reduce impulsivity, and massively changes social networks. It can also increase spirituality, which can help people reframe stress and find meaning and purpose.”
There were a lot of interesting things in that quote. I have found 12-step recovery almost completely eliminated cravings, and I love what it has done to help me with impulsivity. When I first got sober, I had no alcohol or drugs in my system and yet was still having a thought and then immediately doing it, with no ability to pause. That’s not the case any more, and I am grateful for that. Nobody needs a 45-year-old man roaming the streets with the impulse control of a preschooler.
I also like that he mentions a positive relationship between spirituality and finding meaning and purpose. I definitely had chunks of time in sobriety where I had very little spirituality and was not craving alcohol and drugs… but I was rudderless and confused and fearful and a genuine disaster to be around.
But my favorite part of that quote is the part where he says 12-step recovery “massively changes social networks.” As I often write in this newsletter, having a huge network of sober friends is something that has changed my life. I wrote last week about how America is in a friendship crisis, with about 1-in-8 people saying they have zero close friends. I have a lot more than that, and some days they save my life, and other days they just make it a lot better. It wasn’t easy—I started with zero human beings on earth who knew the truth about me in 2008, to now, and it took some grinding to learn how to be close to people. There were times—including some days right now—where I don’t want to hang out with anybody, don’t want to call anybody, don’t want any connection at all. But I’ve found it incredibly important to push through those moments as fast as possible.
One important caveat I would throw on here about this study… I’m not sure why anybody has to adhere to the idea of “choose one path.” This study sets up some specific choices of ways to get sober, and I think that’s how most people outside the rooms tend to think about sobriety: You either try 12-step programs, or you go a clinical psychiatrist, or you go to rehab.
My suggestion would be, why not try all of them? Most of us addicts got drugs and alcohol any which way possible, and if you had said to me that I should choose liquor stores or pharmacies or drug dealers, I would have said screw you, I am going to do whatever it takes to make myself feel better. I’d encourage people to apply the same logic to recovery. Why not go to rehab and start hitting 12-step meetings and get a sponsor and begin cognitive therapy?
I didn’t go through the study page-by-page, but I would love to know the success rates of people who tried five things all at once to get sober. Something tells me they probably did okay. The idea of “more is better” sure worked for me when I was an active addict. Why not when I am an active sober person?
This newsletter is a place of joy and laughter about the deadly serious business of sobriety. So, as I will often do, let me close with a joke:
HEARD AT MEETINGS
I've been sober a while but I still occasionally get the shakes—chocolate, vanilla, or strawberry.
(Credit: AA Grapevine, August 2008, Scott M. of Staten Island, NY)
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