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)
