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AA Meeting Attendance Promotes Abstinence

Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is the most widely used resource for alcohol problems and alcoholism, but little is known about patterns of AA involvement over time and how this relates to abstinence. In a recent study, researchers recruited 349 dependent drinkers when they entered treatment. Patients who reported that they had attended AA were re-interviewed one, three, and five years later. The researchers found four classes of AA “careers” over five years low, medium, high, and declining. The low AA attended only a handful of meetings during the 12 months following treatment. The medium group maintained modest but steady attendance. The high group attended many meetings and stayed with it over time. The declining group attended many meetings but only for a short period of time.

Specifically, the medium and high groups reported stable attendance at the second and third follow-ups (about 60 meetings a year for the medium group and over 200 meetings per year for the high group.) Such high rates of attendance may be the norm, but could reflect the higher proportion of newcomers in AA. For example those with longer time in the program may attend fewer meetings but spend more time with people in recovery outside of meetings or simply disengage somewhat after many years of intense involvement. By year five, there were slight increases for the medium group and slight decreases for the high group. The declining AA group doubled its meeting attendance to almost 200 meetings a year following treatment entry, but by year five, they were only attending about six meetings on average. Not surprisingly, there was a strong parallel between AA meeting attendance and abstinence rates at all follow-ups. (Rates of abstinence by year five were 43% for the low AA group, 73% for the medium group, 79% for the high group and 61% for the declining group).

Notably, only one demographic difference was uncovered by the study; non-high school graduates were overrepresented in the low AA career group. This supports earlier analysis which reported a moderate relationship between AA affiliation and education level.

The prototypical AA careers derived from this study are consistent with anecdotal data about AA meetings: some never connect; some connect but briefly; and others maintain stable and sometimes quite high rates of AA attendance. The authors note that contrary to AA lore, in this study many who connected only for a little while did well afterwards.

(Kaskutas, LA, Ammon, L, Delucchi, K, Room, R, Bond, J, Weisner, C: Alcoholics anonymous careers: Patterns of AA involvement five years after treatment entry. Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research 29: 1983-1990, 2005.)

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