Alcohol research

Contemporary Utilisation of Professional Help by Alcoholics Anonymous Members, Maxwell MA, Annals of the New York Academy of Science, Vol 273, 436-441, 1976

“This Conference reflects the accelerating involvement of physicians and other professionals in the treatment of alcoholic persons, which is, in turn, related to the increased number of alcoholics knocking on the doors of professionals and professionally directed programs.

Alcoholics Anonymous has also been experiencing an increased growth rate. After averaging an annual growth rate of about 6% during the 1960s, the annual growth rate has more than doubled in recent years.

When these interrelated trends are placed alongside the growing awareness, among persons who deal with alcoholics, of the multifaceted and long-term aspects of the "recovery process," the question of mutual appreciation and cooperative interaction between A.A. and the professional community becomes more relevant than ever.

I have previously described the unfavourable perceptions that have muddied the waters of A.A.-professional relations (1). I found in that exploratory study, conducted in 1963, that the perceptions of A.A. both positive and negative, varied a great deal among individual professionals, as did A.A. members' perceptions of the professionals and professionally directed programs. The range of perceptions and the factors that contribute to misperceptions, often a simple lack of knowledge about each other, need not be reviewed in this context. Rather, I will focus on one aspect of the problem, namely, the perception of A.A. as having among its members a disconcerting strain of antiprofessionalism.

This antiprofessionalism is easily inferred from two ideas with some currency among A.A. members: that only an alcoholic can help another alcoholic (which logically rules out all nonprofessionals) and that the A.A. program is complete in itself (the logic of which suggests that professionals have nothing additional to offer).”

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PS For AA Minority Report 2013 click here 

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