The Sober Truth (26 page)
Authors: Lance Dodes
45
. Brendan I. Koerner, “Secret of AA: After 75 Years, We Don’t Know How It Works,”
Wired
, June 23, 2010,
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/06/ff_alcoholics_anonymous/
.
CHAPTER FOUR
1
. Hazelden website admissions page,
http://www.hazelden.org/web//files/20/40/52/f204052/public/admissions.page
.
2
. Betty Ford Center website,
http://www.bettyfordcenter.org
.
3
. Sierra Tucson website,
http://www.sierratucson.com
.
4
. Flyer in author’s collection.
5
. Promises Treatment Centers website,
http://www.promises.com
.
6
. Saint Jude Retreats website,
http://www.soberforever.net
.
7
. Sheila Marikar, “Promises Kept, Promises Broken: Inside Hollywood’s Preeminent Rehab Center,”
ABCNews.com
, March 4, 2011,
http://abcnews.go.com/entertainment/charlie-sheen-shines-light-promises-rehab-center-stars/story?id =13048850
.
8
. Lance Dodes, MD, “Why There Is Lunacy, Literally, In 28-Day Rehabs,”
The Heart of Addiction
blog,
Psychology Today
, April 22, 2012,
http://www.psychologytoday.com
.
9
. Paul Pringle, “The Trouble with Rehab, Malibu-Style,”
Los Angeles Times
, October 9, 2007.
10
. R. F. Forman and W. G. Bovasso, “Staff Beliefs about Addiction Treatment,”
Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment
21, no. 1 (July 2001): 1–9.
11
. C. Russell et al., “Predictors of Addiction Treatment Providers’ Beliefs in the Disease and Choice Models of Addiction,”
Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment
40, no. 2 (March 2011): 150–64.
12
. Pringle, “The Trouble with Rehab.”
13
. Benedict Carey, “Drug Rehabilitation or Revolving Door?”
New York Times
, December 22, 2008.
14
. “Outcomes of Alcohol/Other Drug Dependency Treatment,” Butler Center for Research, February 2011, Hazelden website,
http://www.hazelden.org/web//files/20/40/52/f204052/public/researchupdates
.
15
. R. Stitchfield and P. Owen, “Hazelden’s Model of Treatment and Its Outcome,”
Journal of Addictive Behaviors
23, no. 5 (1998): 669–83.
16
. Ibid.
17
. Marikar, “Promises Kept, Promises Broken.”
18
. Dana-Farber Cancer Institute website,
http://www.dana-farber.org
; Austen Riggs Center website,
http://www.austenriggs.org
.
19
. 1913 ad for Battle Creek Sanitarium, Google Images,
www.google.com
.
20
. Ad for Dansville Sanitarium, Google Images,
www.google.com
.
21
. Ad for Moore’s Brook Sanitarium, Google Images,
www.google.com
.
CHAPTER FIVE
1
. L. Robins et al., “Narcotic Use in Southeast Asia and Afterward,”
Archives of General Psychiatry
32 (1975): 955–61.
2
. According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the US adult population of smokers dropped by 40 percent between 1965 and 1990 (“Smoking Prevalence Among U.S. Adults, 1955–2010,”
Infoplease
, 2012,
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0762370.html
).
3
. E. Khantzian, “The Self-Medication Hypothesis of Addictive Disorders: Focus on Heroin and Cocaine Dependence,”
American Journal of Psychiatry
142 (1985): 1259–64.
4
. J. E. Grant et al., “Pathological Gambling and Alcohol Use Disorder,”
Alcohol Research and Health
26, no. 2 (2002): 143–50,
pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/arh26–2/143–150.pdf?
.
5
. E. Nestler, “From Neurobiology to Treatment: Progress against Addiction,”
Nature Neuroscience
5 (2002): 1076–79;
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12403990
; P. Kalivas and N. Volkow, “The Neural Basis of Addiction: A Pathology of Motivation and Choice,”
American Journal of Psychiatry
152 (2005): 1303–13; N. Volkow et al., “Dopamine in Drug Abuse and Addiction,”
Archives of Neurology
64 (2007): 1475–79.
6
. John E. Helzer, MD, “Significance of the Robins et al. Vietnam Veterans Study,”
American Journal on Addictions
19 (2010): 218–21.
7
. Lance Dodes, MD,
The Heart of Addiction
(New York: HarperCollins, 2002).
8
. K. Merikangas, “The Genetic Epidemiology of Alcoholism,”
Psychological Medicine
20 (1990): 11–22.
9
. L. M. Dodes, “Compulsion and Addiction,”
Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association
44 (1996): 815–35.
10
. This is the mission of all psychotherapy: bringing factors to awareness and working them out to understand and eventually master the lingering issues in our emotional lives.
11
. For those who would like to read more about these ideas and see many real-life examples of how they apply, please see
The Heart of Addiction
(n. 7) and my book
Breaking Addiction: A 7-Step Handbook to Ending Any Addiction
(New York: HarperCollins, 2011).
12
. Indeed, the hiker Aron Ralston was widely hailed for cutting off his own arm to escape a boulder in 2003; the 2010 movie
127 Hours
chronicles and celebrates his bravery.
13
. Dodes,
Breaking Addiction
.
CHAPTER SIX
1
. Here’s the full text of the post:
I recently completed a review of the scientific literature about the effectiveness of 12-step programs, including regular AA meetings and AA-based rehab treatments. What I found is provocative: Although many people do well in 12-step programs and the famous rehabs around the country, most do not. I’m writing a wide-release book about these issues, to be published next year.
What’s missing from the project are the firsthand accounts of how people with addictions feel about their own experiences in 12-step recovery. That’s where I hope to have help from readers of this blog: If you would like to describe your honest and open account of personal experiences in AA and/or rehab, I’d like to hear it. Please note that both positive and negative experiences are welcome. If you don’t have a story to tell but know someone who might want to share, I would appreciate if you could pass this request along to them. If I receive enough accounts, I intend to publish many of them verbatim in the forthcoming book.
No identifying information will be published, including any information about individual counselors, treaters or sponsors. (I.e., it’s fine to say “I was treated at Betty Ford Treatment Center” but not “I was treated by John Smith, a counselor at Betty Ford.”)
If you’d like to participate in this project, please contact me directly at
[email protected]
. Let me know in the email how you’d like to be contacted, and whether you would prefer to conduct a phone interview or simply send your written thoughts. Thank you, and I look forward to hearing from you.
CHAPTER SEVEN
1
. R. Bond et al., “A 61-Million-Person Experiment in Social Influence and Political Mobilization,”
Nature
489 (2012): 295–98.
2
. L. Kaskutas, “Alcoholics Anonymous Effectiveness: Faith Meets Science,”
Journal of Addictive Diseases
28, no. 2 (2009): 145–57.
3
. R. H. Moos and B. S. Moos, “Participation in Treatment and Alcoholics Anonymous: A 16-Year Follow-Up of Initially Untreated Individuals,”
Journal of Clinical Psychology
62 (2006): 735–50.
4
. Kevin Gray, “Does AA Really Work? A Round-Up of Recent Studies,”
The Fix
, January 29, 2012,
http://www.thefix.com/
.
5
. J. Harris et al., “Prior Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) Affiliation and the Acceptability of the Twelve Steps to Patients Entering UK Statutory Addiction Treatment,”
Journal of Studies on Alcohol
64, no. 2 (2003): 257–61.
6
. Ibid.
7
. Poster from the Center on Alcoholism, Substance Abuse, and Addictions, J. Scott Tonigan, Clinical Research Branch, Center on Alcoholism, Substance Abuse, and Addictions (CASAA), University of New Mexico.
8
. P. L. Owen et al., “Participation in Alcoholics Anonymous: Intended and Unintended Change Mechanisms,”
Alcohol: Clinical and Experimental Research
27, no. 3 (March 2003): 524–32.
9
. National Clergy Conference on Alcoholism,
The “Blue Book”
12 (1960): 179–210,
http://www.silkworth.net/religion_clergy/01052.html
.
10
. J. Markham, “Does Mandatory AA/NA Violate the First Amendment?”
North Carolina Criminal Law
(blog), October 16, 2009,
http://nccriminallaw.sog.unc.edu/?p=784
.
11
. Griffin v. Coughlin, 88 N.Y. 2d 674 (1996), 673 N.E.2d 98, 649 N.Y.S.2d 903, June 11, 1996.
12
. J. Kelly et al., “Negative Affect, Relapse, and Alcoholics Anonymous (AA): Does AA Work by Reducing Anger?”
Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs
71 (2010): 434–44.
13
. J. Tonigan and S. Rice, “Is It Beneficial to Have an Alcoholics Anonymous Sponsor?”
Psychology of Addictive Behaviors
24 (2010): 397–403.
14
. P. C. Bernhardt et al., “Testosterone Changes during Vicarious Experiences of Winning and Losing Among Fans at Sporting Events,”
Physiology and Behavior
65, no. 1 (August 1998): 59–62.
CHAPTER EIGHT
1
.
Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions
(New York: AA World Services, 1952), 42.
2
. For many examples of this, see my book
Breaking Addiction: A 7-Step Handbook for Ending Any Addiction
(New York: HarperCollins, 2011).
3
. Clarence Snyder,
Going Through the Steps
, AA sponsorship pamphlet, 1944.
CHAPTER NINE
1
. C. Timko and A. DeBenedetti, “A Randomized Controlled Trial of Intensive Referral to 12-Step Self-Help Groups: One-Year Outcomes,”
Drug and Alcohol Dependence
90 (2007): 270–79.
2
. Li-Tzy Wu et al., “How Do Prescription Opioid Users Differ From Users of Heroin or Other Drugs in Psychopathology?”
Journal of Addiction Medicine
5, no. 1 (March 2011): 28–35.
3
. Sarah W. Yip et al., “Health/Functioning Characteristics, Gambling Behaviors, and Gambling-Related Motivations in Adolescents Stratified by Gambling Problem Severity: Findings from a High School Survey,”
American Journal on Addictions
20, no. 6 (November–December 2011): 495–508.
4
. Betty Ford Institute Consensus Panel, “What Is Recovery? A Working Definition from the Betty Ford Institute,”
Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment
33, no. 3 (October 2007): 221–28.
5
. C. Rutger et al., “Effect of Alcohol References in Music on Alcohol Consumption in Public Drinking Places,”
American Journal on Addictions
20, no. 6 (November–December 2011): 530–34.
6
. Igor Elman et al., “Psychosocial Stress and Its Relationship to Gambling Urges in Individuals with Pathological Gambling,”
American Journal on Addictions
19, no. 4 (July–August 2010): 332–39.
7
. R. B. Cutler and D. A. Fishbain, “Are Alcoholism Treatments Effective? The Project MATCH Data,”
BMC Public Health
14, no. 5 (2005): 75.
8
. Lance Dodes, MD,
Breaking Addiction: A 7-Step Handbook for Ending Any Addiction
(New York: HarperCollins, 2011).
9
. J. P. A. Ioannidis, “Why Most Published Research Findings Are False,”
PLOS Medicine
2, no. 8 (2005),
http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124
.
10
. Nate Silver,
The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail—But Some Don’t
(New York: Penguin Press, 2012).
11
. Ioannidis, “Why Most Published Research Findings Are False.”
12
. Ibid.
13
. P. W. Anderson, “More Is Different: Broken Symmetry and the Nature of the Hierarchical Structure of Sciences,”
Science
177, no. 4047 (1972): 393–96.
14
. Dodes,
Breaking Addiction
.
Please note that page numbers are not accurate for the e-book edition.
abstinence: correlation with engagement,
51; counting days of, 136–137;
percentage of days abstinent (PDA),
74–75; relationship with TSF, 47;
reported rates of, 72; sponsorship
unrelated to, 126
addiction, 81–95; biological views of,
85–88, 147–148, 152, 155–156; compulsion
model of, 83–85, 89–90;
consequences of, 134–135; as failure
of morality, 5–6, 13, 98–99, 110; as
form of insanity, 144–145; geneticists’
views of, 88–89, 147, 155–156; higher
brain functions and, 87–88; as innate,
139; myths about (
See
addiction
myths); physical v. psychological,
81, 82–85; psychological precipitants of,
156–157; psychology of (See
psychology of addiction); soldiers
in Vietnam War, 83–84, 86–87;
studies of treatments (See addiction
treatment studies); as substitute for
helplessness, 91–92, 127; understanding,
81–82, 156–157
addiction counselors, 69–70, 142–144
addiction myths, 134–146; character
defects of addicts, 141–142, 145; counting
days of abstinence, 136–137; denial
myth, 144–145; “hitting bottom,”
134–135; insanity myth, 144; 90/90
prescription, 140–141; “one day at a
time,” 139; “one-size-fits-all” treatment,
137–138; peer group influence,
139–140; surrendering, 135–136; value