What is the success rate of
Alcoholics Anonymous?
Answer
Of those sincerely willing to stop drinking
about 50 per cent have done so at once, 25
per cent after a few relapses and most of
the remainder have improved. (N.Y. State J.
Med., Vol. 44, Aug., 1944).
Another Answer
As of 1949 our quantity results are these.
The 14 year old society of Alcoholics
Anonymous has 80,000 members in about 3,000
groups. We have entered into about 30
foreign countries and U.S. possessions;
translations are going forward. By
occupation we are an accurate cross section
of America. By religious affiliation we are
about 40% Catholic, nominal and active
Protestants; also many former agnostics, and
a sprinkling of Jews comprise the remainder.
Ten to 15% are women. Some Negroes are
recovering without undue difficulty. Top
medical and religious endorsements are
almost universal. A.A. membership is
pyramiding, chain style, at the rate of 30%
a year. During 1949 we expect 20,000
permanent recoveries, at least. Half of them
will be medium or mild cases with an average
age of 36 - a fairly recent development.
Of alcoholics who stay with us and really
try, 50% get sober at once and stay that
way, 25% do so after some relapses and the
remainder show some improvement. But many
problem drinkers do quit A.A. after a brief
contact, many, three or four out of five.
Some are too psychopathic or damaged. But
the majority have powerful rationalizations
yet to be broken down. Exactly this does
happen, providing they get what A.A. calls a
"good exposure," on first contact. Alcohol
then burns such a hot fire under them that
they are driven back to us, often years
later. They tell us that they had to return;
it was A.A. or else. Such cases leave us the
agreeable impression that half of our
original exposures will eventually return,
most of them to recover. (Amer. J.
Psychiatry Vol. 106, 1949).
Another Answer
About two thousand recoveries now take place
each month. Of those alcoholics who wish to
get well and are emotionally capable of
trying our method, 50 per cent recover
immediately, 25 per cent after a few
backslides. The remainder are improved if
they continue active in A.A. Of the total
who approach us, it is probable that only 25
per cent become A.A. members on the first
contact. A list of seventy-five of our early
failures today discloses that 70 returned to
A.A. after one to ten years. We did not
bring them back; they came of their own
accord. (N.Y. State J. Med., Vol.50, July
1950).
Another Answer
As we gained in size, we also gained in
effectiveness. The recovery rate went up. Of
all those who really tried A.A., 50 per cent
made it at once, 25 per cent finally made
it; and the rest, if they stayed with us,
were definitely improved. That percentage
has since held, even with those who first
wrote their stories in the original edition
of "Alcoholics Anonymous." In fact, 75 per
cent of these finally achieved sobriety.
Only 25 per cent died or went mad. Most of
those still alive have been sober for an
average of twenty years.
In our early days and since, we have found
that great numbers of alcoholics approach us
and then turn away - maybe three out of
five, today. But we have happily found out
that the majority of them later return,
provided they are not too psychopathic or
too brain damaged. Once they have learned
from the lips of other alcoholics that they
are beset by an often fatal malady, their
further drinking only turns up the screw.
Eventually they are forced back into A.A.,
they must or die. Sometimes this happens
years after the first exposure. The ultimate
recovery rate in A.A. is therefore a lot
higher than we at first thought it could be.
Yet we must humbly reflect that Alcoholics
Anonymous has so far made only a scratch
upon the total problem of alcoholism. Here
in the United States, we have helped to
sober up scarcely five per cent of the total
alcoholic population of 4,500,000. (N.Y.
Med. Society on Alcoholism, 1958).
Another Answer
A.A. members can soberly ask themselves what
became of the 600,000 alcoholics who
approached the Fellowship during the past
thirty years but who did not stay. How much
and how often did we fail all these? When we
remember that in the 20 years of A.A.
existence we have reached less than 10 per
cent of all those who might be willing to
approach us, we begin to get an idea of the
immensity of our task, and of the
responsibilities with which we will always
be confronted. (G.S.C. 1958).
Another Answer
I took note of the fact that in the
generation which has seen A.A. come alive,
this period of twenty-five years, a vast
procession of the world's drunks have passed
in front of us and have gone over the
precipice. Based on figures I was careful to
get, it looks like, worldwide, there was
something like 25 million of them and out of
that stream of despair, illness, misery and
death -- we fished out just one in a hundred
in the last 25 years. I think we're fishing
somewhat bigger and better.
Our numbers are considerable. We have size.
There is great security in numbers. You
can't imagine how it was in the very first
two or three years of this thing when nobody
was sure that anybody could stay
sober...Then we were like the people on
Eddie Rickenbacker's raft. Boy, anybody rock
that raft, even a little, and he was sure to
be clobbered, that's all, and then thrown
overboard. But today it's a different story.
Along with greater security in numbers,
there has come a certain amount of
liability. The more people there are to do a
job, it often turns out, the less there are.
In other words, what is everybody's business
is nobody's business. So size is bound to
bring complacency unless we get increasingly
aware of what's going on. (Transcribed from
tape. GSC, 1960)
