After reading “Alcoholics Anonymous” the book, I can’t help but ask my self one burning question. Why do I have to accept God to recover from alcohol? This incited me to search for new theories that have been tested and developed more recently. During my investigation I ran across a study titled, “Project Match”. These were the findings.
Project Match was launched in 1989 and concluded in 1997. It was a study conducted by a group of mental health clinicians and funded by the Federal Government. 8 years, and 27 million dollars later, everyone anxiously awaited the test results. The trained psychotherapists administered three programs described below that emphasize three different routes for alcohol addiction recovery. Alcoholics Synonymous I affectionately call it.
Question: Do certain types of alcoholics respond best to specific forms of treatment?
Program 1 - The traditional 12-step program that treats alcoholism as an illness. Recovery is achieved through abstinence, support from other addicts, attendance of AA meetings, and personal surrender to God’s spiritual authority.
Program 2 - Cognitive-behavioral coping skills therapy focusing on formulating strategies for avoiding or constructively dealing with problems or situations that tempt one to drink.
Program 3 - Motivational enhancement therapy targets helping clients to identify and mobilize personal strengths and resources that can reduce alcohol consumption.
Treatment matching operated on the assumption that alcoholics fall into categories best served by one of the three strategies. For example, program 1, the 12-step AA facilitation therapy might work best with alcoholics searching for spiritual and religious meaning in their lives. Program 2 with the cognitive-behavioral therapy may be better suited to alcoholics who display serious psychiatric symptoms and thinking difficulties. The third program, involving motivational enhancement, could act as a tonic for heavy drinkers who express little desire for hope or improvement.
Results: Enoch Gordis, director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) in Bethesda, Md. States clearly, "The good news Is that treatment works. All three treatments evaluated in Project MATCH produced excellent overall outcomes."
Scientific interest in developing treatments attuned to the
psychology of alcoholics and their individual characteristics has increased during the last 50 years. More than 30 small-scale studies published during the 1980s reported that treatment matching, based on a number of individual characteristics, held definite promise for alleviating alcoholism.
Conclusion: Relief. There are other methods for alcohol recovery.
