Dr. Keith Humphreys

On abstinence outcomes, if you ask like do people stop entirely,

AA and also 12-step facilitation kinds of counseling to help people get into AA was winning, you know, by 50% higher rates routinely of that.

And then when you looked at other outcomes like did the person at least cut their drinking or reduce the damage of drinking or less dependent or better family, you know, functioning, whatever, it was as good as.

And that's amazing for something that's free.

And so anyone still left saying it doesn't work, they really... Often people think there's no evidence.

There's a ton of evidence.

There's randomized trials all over, there are quasi-experimental studies, there are healthcare utilization studies.

It's amazing.

And so I always say to anybody, whether it's a patient or just a person I care about, you know, if you want to stop drinking, that'd be a place to try.

You know, there's really no harm to it, right?

You know, if you go to a bad movie, you're out in the evening and 15 bucks.

You go to a bad day meeting, you know, you're just out in the evening.

It's not like a high risk endeavor to just give it a go.

And there are some alternatives too, by the way, there are smaller, but if you live in a

like San Francisco Bay Area where there's more choices, you know, there's also like Smart Recovery and Women for Sobriety and I'm forgetting some of the other names, but choices if you don't like a particular AA model, but that experience of mutual support, people are on the same journey with me, they're further along the same journey and they're doing well, it inspires hope, they've given me useful information, all of that is really potent and that's why

It's survived and thrived as an organization.

My 195 countries or something have AA in it.

No tax dollars.

I was very interested in this question for the drug groups.

There's very little on gambling and sexual addicts.