“Summary.
Alcoholics Anonymous represent one of the few clearly successful
treatment approaches for alcoholism. In an attempt to delineate the
dynamics of this approach, six propositions were derived from
previous research on A.A. And tested in a longitudinal study of
post-discharge A.A. affiliation among 378 white males treated for
alcoholism in a state hospital. Unlike previous studies, the present
effort employed full-fledged affiliation with A.A. as the criterion
for "success" in this post-discharge maintenance regimen.
Through stepwise multiple regression, 24 variables emerged from a
battery of 81 possible social and psychological predictors as the
set of significant predictors. Propositions were tested by comparison
with this set, indicating (1) affiliative needs, (2) experience of
intensive labeling as an alcoholic, (3) physical stability prior to
treatment, and (4) proneness to guilt to be significant predictors of
successful affiliation. Propositions not supported by the data were
(1) ego strength and self-reliance, (2) social stability previous to
treatment, and (3) middle class background and experience. Results
indicate the predictive prominence of psychological predispositions
to be greater than social attributes, implying the importance of
relatively fixed psychological accounting for success in a
sociotherapeutic regimen.”
Source: Sociopsychological Predictors of Affiliation with Alcoholics Anonymous. A Longitudinal Study of Treatment Success, Trice HM and Romans PM, Social Psychiatry, Vol. 5(No.1), 51-59, 1970
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