effectiveness of a treatment is to compare it against other treatment and/or no treatment at all.

There have been two controlled studies of the effectiveness of Alcoholics Anonymous independent of any other type of treatment. Since they deal with persons required by the court to attend AA, they demonstrate the relative effectiveness of AA in a coercive context. Since a significant number of AAs are first indoctrinated in this way, both studies are relevant.

The first was an experiment done in San Diego, California. Chronic offenders, averaging twelve prior drunk arrests each, were given a thirty-day suspended sentence and a one-year probation. A requirement of probation was that they remain abstinent for one year.

A court judge randomly assigned 301 people to one of three categories: no treatment, a psychiatrically oriented community alcoholism clinic and Alcoholics Anonymous. Complete data for a minimum of one year was available on 241 cases. In the no-treatment group, 56 percent were rearrested. The AA group fared the worst. In what was almost a tie with the clinic group, 69 percent of the group sent to AA was rearrested. An interesting question, one that was not answered in the research paper, is whether the clinic, as is customary, also sent their clients to AA.

In the first month, all groups did equally as well (or poorly, depending on how one chooses to look at it). After the first month, presumably when AA or clinic attendance should begin showing its effect, is precisely when both groups lost ground against no treatment. Also, while only eleven of the 241 persons credited AA with their longest period of abstinence, nine of these eleven, or a full 80 percent, were rearrested. Those who credited AA the most were rearrested the most. The authors of the report stated,