| Jerry
Dorsman's critique of my article on 12 Step/Whole
Child programs (Letters, Issue #24, October, 1993), makes
several important points, but is potentially misleading
in other areas. I
agree that Alcoholics Anonymous is less than perfect,
and like any medicine it needs to be applied with caution
and common sense. It was initially designed for middle
aged white men, and adaptation is necessary when teens
become involved. Also I would never recommend young
teens to become involved without the support of a responsible
mentor, and prefer to see support from professionals
who understand the program well.
On the other hand, some
of Mr. Dorsman's information is simply wrong, and some
is badly out of context. For example, in 1993, AA membership
in NOT primarily middle aged white men, and middle aged
white men are a rarity at most other 12 Step fellowships,
such as NA, OA, etc. Go to a public meeting and see
for yourself. I would be surprised to see more than
1/3 of any AA meeting being middle aged white men, unless
it was a special interest group within AA, especially
attractive to middle aged white men.
Since Mr. Dorsman is vague
on his source of the 11% success figure, I have no way
to check its accuracy, but it clearly does not apply
to the relevant population at issue in my article: Teens
supported in 12 step work, by a competent treatment
or personal growth program. To introduce the 11% statistic
in this context is misleading at best.
As to AA's supposed danger,
I suppose we could, with extensive research, find isolated
instances of deaths in well run kindergartens, but that
doesn't prove that kindergartens are generally dangerous.
Certainly any teen addict should be professionally screened
for suicide risk, and AA has never claimed to remedy
such risk directly nor in the short term. Again, Mr.
Dorsman is out of the context of the situation at issue:
teens in a program with demonstrated competence to address
simultaneous risks.
I have not read Mr. Dorsman's
book, but if he has a cost-effective approach which
addresses addiction as it is understood in contemporary
research, I would welcome its introduction as an alternative
to 12 step work. His implication that short term or
intermediate term group therapy is an acceptable alternative
by itself causes me some concern, as that view is not
supported by research (although group work does play
a significant part in combination with other interventions
in all respected approaches).
My two points were that
teens who are addicted need special attention for addiction
issues, and far too many schools and programs which
do an excellent job with purely behavioral issues are
not even bothering to raise the question of addiction.
In making those points I used the example of the CEDU
School which chose to address those two needs and happened
to use AA as one tool, apparently with proper safeguards.
The tragic results of neglecting my two points involve
many more deaths than one isolated case in Minneapolis.
Addressing these concerns should not be optional.
- Thomas J. Croke, Latrobe, Pennsylvania.
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