The Sober Truth by Lance Dodes

Author:Lance Dodes
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780807033166
Publisher: Beacon Press
Published: 2014-04-08T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIX

WHAT THE ADDICTS SAY

THE ACCOUNTS IN THIS CHAPTER tell us a few things about what works and what fails in 12-step treatment, and why. As part of the process of writing this book, I invited (through my blog on Psychology Today) firsthand accounts, both positive and negative, of readers’ experiences with 12-step programs.1 This book’s writing deadline and space requirements limited the number of interviews I could conduct as well as the total number of accounts that could be included. There was no selection process in choosing the narratives in this chapter; they are simply the reports of the first ten people who responded and gave permission to use their stories in the book. After the deadline I received a number of further accounts; except for a couple of deeply negative reports of people’s 12-step experiences, they were remarkable in citing the same combination of positive and negative factors seen in the stories below. These reports tell us much about AA that most people don’t hear in popular media.

All of the accounts that follow were either e-mailed or recorded from a telephone interview (each is marked accordingly). The participants gave their permission to use all or any part of their accounts in this book. Their stories have been edited for clarity; some portions were shortened, and material that was deemed repetitive or irrelevant was omitted. Where a person left off a part of his or her views about a topic, then returned to them later, the portions have generally been combined. Except for some minor grammatical fixes, words added for ease of reading have been placed in brackets.

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