Intelligent Article on Alcoholics Anonymous

Brendan I. Koerner has written an intelligent article about Alcoholics Anonymous in Wired, entitled “Secret of AA: After 75 years We Don’t Know How It Works.” The article describes recent research on the effectiveness of AA (It doesn’t appear to work when ordered by a court), but also discusses the physiology of alcohol addiction and the neurological effects of the addiction. The article further discusses some of the possible mechanisms that may be at work in AA’s success in reducing addiction to alcohol. One point made by the article, which legal practitioners must keep in mind, is that 90 percent of alcohol dependent people who had stopped drinking will drink again. If you are interested in the seeming intractability of the problems we see related to the abuse of alcohol, this article is worth your time. http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/06/ff_alcoholics_anonymous/

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