Thursday, December 18, 2008

Study compares Twelve Steps with various treatments

Researchers comparing types of treatment for various categories of alcohol-dependent patients found that encouraging participation in Alcoholics Anonymous was more effective than other therapies for those whose social networks supported drinking.

Twelve Step Facilitation Therapy (TSF) in which the goal is to help bring about patients' active participation in AA, was compared to Motivational Enhancement Therapy (MET) and Cognitive Behavioral Coping Skills Therapy (CBT), in a study of 952 patients during the year following outpatient alcoholism treatment. Researchers said that in prior studies, a network support for drinking predicted negative drinking outcomes for treatment-seeking clients.

For those clients, "receiving a treatment with the goal of decreasing support for drinking or increasing support for abstinence will be effective in improving subsequent alcohol treatment outcome," researchers wrote. The study, sponsored by the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, appeared in the January 2008 Journal Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.

"Individuals assigned to TSF have greater subsequent AA involvement compared with those assigned to CBT or MET, and it is the AA involvement that leads to better drinking outcomes by buffering the negative effects of social networks supportive of drinking. Involvement in AA Fellowship exposes a person to a network of people who have a goal of sobriety and who support one another in achieving this goal," they wrote.

Source: National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism,
AA Grapevine July, 2008

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