What
is the success rate of Alcoholics Anonymous?
Answer
Of
those sincerely willing to stop drinking about 50 per
cent have done so at once, 25 per cent after a few relapses
and most of the remainder have improved. (N.Y. State
J. Med., Vol. 44, Aug., 1944).
Another
Answer
As
of 1949 our quantity results are these. The 14 year
old society of Alcoholics Anonymous has 80,000 members
in about 3,000 groups. We have entered into about 30
foreign countries and U.S. possessions; translations
are going forward. By occupation we are an accurate
cross section of America. By religious affiliation we
are about 40% Catholic, nominal and active Protestants;
also many former agnostics, and a sprinkling of Jews
comprise the remainder. Ten to 15% are women. Some Negroes
are recovering without undue difficulty. Top medical
and religious endorsements are almost universal. A.A.
membership is pyramiding, chain style, at the rate of
30% a year. During 1949 we expect 20,000 permanent recoveries,
at least. Half of them will be medium or mild cases
with an average age of 36 - a fairly recent development.
Of alcoholics who stay with us and really try, 50% get
sober at once and stay that way, 25% do so after some
relapses and the remainder show some improvement. But
many problem drinkers do quit A.A. after a brief contact,
many, three or four out of five. Some are too psychopathic
or damaged. But the majority have powerful rationalizations
yet to be broken down. Exactly this does happen, providing
they get what A.A. calls a "good exposure," on first
contact. Alcohol then burns such a hot fire under them
that they are driven back to us, often years later.
They tell us that they had to return; it was A.A. or
else. Such cases leave us the agreeable impression that
half of our original exposures will eventually return,
most of them to recover. (Amer. J. Psychiatry Vol. 106,
1949).
Another
Answer
About
two thousand recoveries now take place each month. Of
those alcoholics who wish to get well and are emotionally
capable of trying our method, 50 per cent recover immediately,
25 per cent after a few backslides. The remainder are
improved if they continue active in A.A. Of the total
who approach us, it is probable that only 25 per cent
become A.A. members on the first contact. A list of
seventy-five of our early failures today discloses that
70 returned to A.A. after one to ten years. We did not
bring them back; they came of their own accord. (N.Y.
State J. Med., Vol.50, July 1950).
Another
Answer
As
we gained in size, we also gained in effectiveness.
The recovery rate went up. Of all those who really tried
A.A., 50 per cent made it at once, 25 per cent finally
made it; and the rest, if they stayed with us, were
definitely improved. That percentage has since held,
even with those who first wrote their stories in the
original edition of "Alcoholics Anonymous." In fact,
75 per cent of these finally achieved sobriety. Only
25 per cent died or went mad. Most of those still alive
have been sober for an average of twenty years.
In our early days and since, we have found that great
numbers of alcoholics approach us and then turn away
- maybe three out of five, today. But we have happily
found out that the majority of them later return, provided
they are not too psychopathic or too brain damaged.
Once they have learned from the lips of other alcoholics
that they are beset by an often fatal malady, their
further drinking only turns up the screw. Eventually
they are forced back into A.A., they must or die. Sometimes
this happens years after the first exposure. The ultimate
recovery rate in A.A. is therefore a lot higher than
we at first thought it could be.
Yet we must humbly reflect that Alcoholics Anonymous
has so far made only a scratch upon the total problem
of alcoholism. Here in the United States, we have helped
to sober up scarcely five per cent of the total alcoholic
population of 4,500,000. (N.Y. Med. Society on Alcoholism,
1958).
Another
Answer
A.A.
members can soberly ask themselves what became of the
600,000 alcoholics who approached the Fellowship during
the past thirty years but who did not stay. How much
and how often did we fail all these? When we remember
that in the 20 years of A.A. existence we have reached
less than 10 per cent of all those who might be willing
to approach us, we begin to get an idea of the immensity
of our task, and of the responsibilities with which
we will always be confronted. (G.S.C. 1958).
Another
Answer
I
took note of the fact that in the generation which has
seen A.A. come alive, this period of twenty-five years,
a vast procession of the world's drunks have passed
in front of us and have gone over the precipice. Based
on figures I was careful to get, it looks like, worldwide,
there was something like 25 million of them and out
of that stream of despair, illness, misery and death
-- we fished out just one in a hundred in the last 25
years. I think we're fishing somewhat bigger and better.
Our numbers are considerable. We have size. There is
great security in numbers. You can't imagine how it
was in the very first two or three years of this thing
when nobody was sure that anybody could stay sober...Then
we were like the people on Eddie Rickenbacker's raft.
Boy, anybody rock that raft, even a little, and he was
sure to be clobbered, that's all, and then thrown overboard.
But today it's a different story. Along with greater
security in numbers, there has come a certain amount
of liability. The more people there are to do a job,
it often turns out, the less there are. In other words,
what is everybody's business is nobody's business. So
size is bound to bring complacency unless we get increasingly
aware of what's going on. (Transcribed from tape. GSC,
1960)
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