SMART Recovery + Buddhist Recovery more successful than AA

[Olm the Water King]

https://www.thefix.com/content/why-smart-recovery-will-never-replace-alcoholics-anonymous

Why SMART Recovery® Will Never Replace Alcoholics Anonymous

By Matthew Leichter 09/23/14

Five reasons why SMART Recovery® will never push out AA as the main model of recovery, despite higher success rates.

There is a belief in SMART Recovery® that in about 20 years, they will become the primary model of recovery over Alcoholics Anonymous because their recovery rates are higher. While there are no studies directly comparing SMART Recovery® with Alcoholics Anonymous, there are studies comparing the SMART Recovery® techniques with those used in AA. SMART Recovery® employs evidence-based tools for recovery. That is to say, in their meetings, they discuss tools to recovery that have been proven to work over the course of several clinical studies. The primary tool in SMART Recovery® is Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy, REBT, for short. This tool basically assists someone in changing their belief system about alcohol and/or drugs and it’s fairly effective, boasting a recovery rate anywhere between 35% and 50% over a one-year period, depending on the study.

Perhaps the most famous controlled study comparing Alcoholics Anonymous and REBT is the 1980 study dubbed the Brandsma Study. Jeff Brandsma took groups of people in coerced attendance programs and randomly placed them into different groups of therapy, 12-step (from Alcoholics Anonymous) or REBT. Over the course of two years, the REBT group did significantly better abstaining than the 12-step (or AA) group (in fact, more than 10% higher). While there are questions about how the study was conducted, there is no question that this study showed a significantly higher relative value of recovery for REBT practitioners to AA practitioners, keeping in mind that they were required to attend. Other studies show Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, a very similar technique, to be up to 60% effective for abstinence in some studies, with an average recovery rate of 45% over the course of a year. Alcoholics Anonymous doesn’t come close to these rates of abstinence, hovering around the same rate as spontaneous remission (otherwise known as a ‘cold turkey’ approach) in most controlled studies or epidemiological surveys. There are those, of course, who would argue that AA’s recovery rates are higher, but their claim really doesn’t stand up under scientific analysis. Most studies claiming higher rates had flawed designs such as selection bias or lack of control group.

In light of AA’s anemic rates of recovery and SMART Recovery®’s 20-year longevity as a treatment program, many are questioning if SMART Recovery® will ever replace Alcoholics Anonymous. Admittedly, SMART Recovery® seems to just now be getting some media attention, and seems to be gaining ground at the rate of growth of about 10% per year. Fans of evidence-based medicine eagerly await the day when SMART Recovery® overcomes AA. Unfortunately, that day will probably never come.

While SMART Recovery® may grow as a strong alternative, it will never have the dominating presence Alcoholics Anonymous does and there are a few clear cut reasons as to why:

Alcoholics Anonymous thrives as a social network, more than a recovery program. In all honesty, to most members of Alcoholics Anonymous, recovery rates are irrelevant...

Three Buddhist Truths About Curing Alcoholism, Demonstrated by My Enlightened Drinking Buddy | TheInfluence

Three Buddhist Truths About Curing Alcoholism, Demonstrated by My Enlightened Drinking Buddy

If you have the Buddhist gift of living in the here-and-now, share it. It’s your friends’ best, perhaps only, hope.

Before I tell you more about how to cure your friends’ alcoholism, based on my experiences in my local bar in Brooklyn, let me dispatch with the worlds of alcoholism/addiction treatment and alcohol policy. Don’t worry—it won’t take long!

...Addiction Is In the Life, Not the Thing...

 

[Olm the Water King]

This is important though:

SMART Recovery® tolerates external ideas that convolute its message. As a technique for one-on-one therapy, taking a passive stance when an individual expresses an opposing view is a great way to help them eventually arrive at the correct solution. As a volunteer public health program, from an epidemiological perspective, it is actually harmful. There is evidence that the combination of exposing someone to both Alcoholics Anonymous and SMART Recovery® techniques such as REBT at the same time can cause conflict in an individual as each technique holds opposing views on addiction and the power of the self.