Talk:Twelve-step program/Archive 2

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Court-mandated Twelve-step attendance

I don't believe this section, as it's currently written, keeps with WP:NOT#SOAPBOX and WP:NPOV#Undue weight. I'm not sure if it's relevant in this article to being with. - Craigtalbert 01:30, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Reviewing the sources of this section, I don't see much that's worth keeping. The only purpose for this information is to imply if a court sees twelve step groups and unequivocally religious, then it contradicts statements made by the groups to the contrary (e.g. twelve Step groups are spiritual, not religious). In other words, would be documenting instances of courts saying that twelve step groups incorrectly describe themselves. This is, however, mixing legal definitions of religion and spirituality with colloquial definitions. It seems like it serves no other purpose than ammunition in a POV semantics debate. Other than that, it's all about constitutional law, judges, parole officers, etc, which is not relevant to this article. -- Craigtalbert 09:45, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
It looks to me as if you just removed a section containing notable, cited facts, chiefly that the State of New York has found that AA-style twelve-step programs are religious. Please consider returning this fact to the article if you expect your edit to stand; as removing cited facts from Wikipedia articles is not usually considered legitimate conduct here. --FOo 01:42, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
Then maybe you should have another look. I removed a section that cited an obviously biased source (e.g. Resisting 12-Step Coercion: How to Fight Forced Participation in AA, NA Or 12-Step Treatment), went in to excruciating detail on unrelated constitutional law issues, was on a topic that has questionable relevance to this article (do you really think a treatment on the difference between spirituality and religion is within the scope of this article?), and was laced with POV language. Removing it was well within the guidelines of every wikipedia policy I've read. -- Craigtalbert 02:41, 29 September 2007 (UTC)


Sept. 7, 2007 Inouye vs. Kemna -- 9th Circuit Court of Appeals not only upheld the earlier rulings that AA functions as a relgion , it went a step further allowng the plaintiff, who was ordered to attend AA, the right to pursue damages. The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco: the constitutional dividing line between church and state in such cases is so clear that a parole officer can be sued for damages for ordering a parolee to go through rehabilitation at Alcoholics Anonymous or an affiliated program for drug addicts. In that ruling it was also noted "adherence to the AA fellowship entails engagement in religious activity and religious proselytization." In "working" the Twelve Steps, participants become actively involved in seeking God through prayer, confessing wrongs and asking for "removal of shortcomings." The Ninth Court of Appeals pointed to cases decided before 2001 by the federal courts of appeal for the Seventh Circuit (Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin) and the Second Circuit (New York, Connecticut, Vermont), in addition to a number of cases in lower federal courts and in state courts, all with the same result. The "unanimous conclusion" of these courts was that coercing a person into AA/NA or into AA/NA based treatment programs was unconstitutional because of their religious nature. http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/09/08/BA99S1AKQ.DTL

The san fransico gate news is not a biased source. Fact: The Wiki Addresses Mandated Court attendance Fact : Judges and parol officers have been mandating people to attend AA and 12 steps for drug and alcohol related incidences.

Fact there have been court cases.

Fact: The Courts do not agree with AA or 12 steps assessment of themselves. Fact the courts have ruled it a violation of peoples rights {in the United States} to be sentenced to AA or other 12 step programs.

Fact: It is not the wiki job to agree or disagree with the courts assessment of AA and therefor eliminate from The AA page because the courts have a different viewpoint. Fact the information above came from a newspaper. Fact you can find all the cases related to AA, in Find Law. I have read them.small>—Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.232.97.13 (talk) 22:25, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Please mind WP:FORUM. I don't disagree with you. The problem with it, as I stated previously, are the relevance of constitutional law and the "religion vs. spirituality" discussion to this article. Even if we were to included it, what you've written gives it undue weight. -- Craigtalbert 00:42, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
The "undue weight" policies have to do with fringe opinions. The finding of a state court of appeals is not a fringe opinion. It is the law (within that court's jurisdiction, of course). --FOo 02:36, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
I don't see much in the undue weight section about fringe opinions. I do see a lot of discussion about prominence. Originally I didn't believe this article advanced the idea that Twelve-step programs were "spiritual, not religious." I was wrong, it did in an uncited/OR section that I just removed. There are at least two different opinions on the subject: (1) that twelve step groups are spiritual, not religious (2) that despite what they claim they are religious. If you include one opinion, you have to include the other. Having an entire section dedicated to one opinion, and a sentence embedded in a POV section about the other, I'd say is undue weight. As it stands now, they both have equal weight. -- Craigtalbert 04:47, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
I personally liked the one-sentence line as it was previously in the intro: a simple statement that some jurisdictions obligate the accused to attend meetings, which is a controversial practice. it's worth acknowleding this practice. plenty of people show up at aa meetings thru this, and it's controversial both among individual 12-steppers and among the accused. Pozcircuitboy 19:07, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
It isn't merely a controversial practice, which suggests merely that some people don't like it. It is, in some jurisdictions, an illegal practice. --FOo 02:33, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
I agreed that the amount of information was becoming excessive. I don't think it needs to be cut, but rather we-written according to wiki guidelines with a link to a new article withall of this info. it is important info to some people, and deserves its own article. if anyone has the willingness to write it, go for it. but all of that info about court-mandation is irrelevant to the topic at hand. very similar to the issue with AA history awhile back - the extra info was just overwhelming the general purpose of the article. Pozcircuitboy 19:10, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm fine with this as long as it gives reasonable weight to both opinions, otherwise it's a "POV fork." Also mentioned this in the AA talk page section on the same subject. -- Craigtalbert 20:59, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Reverting Good Faith Changes

Please be aware of the guidelines on Help:Reverting. One such is that, except in cases of obvious vandalism, reversion is a last rather than a first resort.

In particular:

  • Do not simply revert changes that are made as part of a dispute. Be respectful to other editors, their contributions and their points of view.
  • Do not revert good faith edits. In other words, try to consider the editor "on the other end." If what one is attempting is a positive contribution to Wikipedia, a revert of those contributions is inappropriate unless, and only unless, you as an editor possess firm, substantive, and objective proof to the contrary. Mere disagreement is not such proof. See also Wikipedia:Assume good faith.

Reverting an edit with no justification save an armwave of WIKI:WL is itself vandalism.

PhGustaf 22:09, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

207.194.108.93 has been warned about these kind of edits. This is also not an article about SMART Recovery, the information doesn't belong here to begin with. -- Craigtalbert 23:04, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Help:Reverting says:

Do not revert changes simply because someone makes an edit you consider problematic, biased, or inaccurate. Improve the edit, rather than reverting it.

Your opinion that the article "doesn't belong here" does not justify your reverting it undiscussed. The [citation needed] flag I added was a more appropriate response.

PhGustaf 23:47, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Even if 207.194.108.93 came back and cited it with the most immaculate peer-reviewed and reliable source in the universe, this article is not about SMART recovery - that's a fact, not my opinion. This is why there's warning templates for things like Addition of unsourced material without proper citations and Using Wikipedia for advertising or promotion. The only thing I might have done wrong was not adding another to the lost list of template warnings on 207.194.108.93's talk page, he/she has been around long enough that I decided against it. -- Craigtalbert 00:05, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
And, look, this is the problem with not only this article, but also the AA article - everyone wants to run to the talk page to fight about the smallest change. Every time I make a perfectly reasonable change, there has to be a three page discussion about. It's a waste of everyone's time. I've been talking about this with 82.19.66.37. Instead of stretching the rules and fighting tooth and nail to keep not-so-great content in articles from not-so-great sources (that is, if there's one provided at all), and quoting wikipedia policy, why not just spend time finding good sources? -- Craigtalbert 00:17, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Court-Manadation

The writing someone just added about court mandated 12 step stuff is unclear, stolen from another source (plagarized), and incorrectly-punctuated. We should revert the old stuff if people are going to put this stuff in the article. at least the previous version was well-written. thoughts?: Pozcircuitboy 21:36, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Paragraph on Anonymity

I completely disagree with this paragraph as a problem. I've never heard someone tell me that I can say anything in a meeting and expect to never hear about it again. That seems the *opposite* of 12 step work - steps 8 and 9 specifically are all about facing what i've done and being willing to walk through the consequences. My understanding of anonymity of the 12th tradition is that it refers to how 12 steppers interract with public media and how i treat OTHER people's shares, not fear about my own. cf http://www.adozensteps.com/the-twelfth-tradition/ http://draonline.org/trad12-a.html the AA 12 and 12, NA "It Works: How and Why" and anything else on 12 steps. maybe i'll figure out how to rewrite this at some point. Pozcircuitboy 22:31, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

The paragraph isn't really about anonymity -- it's about confidentiality. It's often said at meetings that "What's said here stays here", and the graf just says there's no legal assurance of this. PhGustaf 02:28, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Occasions of abuse at meetings

This is truly an AA issue. I doubt another fellowship would handle this in the same way. Please feel free to put it there, but if there isn't a solid argument why this specifically relates to the 12 steps I will remove it soon, or at least seriously re-write it. Pozcircuitboy 22:52, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

I very much agree on this one. The article it does talk specifically about AA and it's the author's opinions that it is particularly problematic in AA as there are many more man than women in the fellowship - something that's most definitely not true in other programs (in fact, it's reversed most of the non-substance abuse related ones). It would be a mistake to generalize these findings. -- Craigtalbert 01:04, 6 October 2007 (UTC)


no, it is not just an AA issue, it is an issue where the 12 step traditions come into play.

"Former members tried to get the central AA office in New York to condemn Midtown's tactics . AA makes strong suggestions on how groups should operate however cannot enforce them for in keeping with the 12 step tradtions: "it has no firm hierarchy, no official regulations, and exercises no oversight of individual groups."


Do, other 12 step groups have differenct traditions from AA? -- —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.232.97.13 (talk • contribs) 7 October 2007, 20:42

Again, the authors of the study on 13th-stepping didn't mention the twelve traditions as being the source of the problem. They believed it was due to most large number of males in AA and the high incidence of sexual abuse histories among women in AA that could make them more susceptible to sexual exploitation. The demographics of other groups are different from AA's. I would expect to see similar patterns in NA, but the research doesn't support that so it would be WP:SYN, or speculation. -- Craigtalbert

Was this article previously a copyright violation?

While researching/checking some of the references for this article, I came across this page, that either pulled information and references EXACTLY as they were in previous versions, or editors had pulled information from that page.

I believe the article is different enough now that it doesn't constitute a copyright violation. But, everybody, if you're a guilty party here, please don't do this in the future. -- Craigtalbert 07:28, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Wow, that is markedly similar. I have not seen it previously. Actually I wonder if some of it was copied from this *shrug*. Pozcircuitboy 22:56, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

New Criticism Section

I did some copyediting on the court mandated attendance and confidentiality sections, and replaced them with the not-copyedited versions in the Alcoholics Anonymous article. Unless there are criticisms made that apply equally to all twelve step programs, we should avoid putting redundant information in this section and link to criticisms of programs in existing articles. -- Craigtalbert 07:31, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Removed Meeting Process section

I did some copyediting, removed some weasel wording, and moved two paragraphs from the meeting process section putting one in the "Process" section, and the other in the "Criticism" section. -- Craigtalbert 03:45, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Moving criticism back to AA

If it doesn't broadly apply to all twelve-step groups, it really should be in the specific articles. E.g. the journal of legal medicine article was about addiction recovery twelve step groups, and the the court mandated attendance was about AA/NA. Doesn't belong here. -- Craigtalbert 16:32, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Ok thanks. -Bikinibomb 18:00, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Dream Theater's "Alcoholics Anonymous suite"

A bit out of theme, probably on a "Trivia" section, should there be a reference to Dream Theater's Alcoholics Anonymous suite? Its being written by DT's drummer Mike Portnoy based on these twelve steps. --Undiente 09:03, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

AA's Twelve Traditions

If this article focuses on the "Twelve Step Program" and many "Anonymous" fellowships have adapted the program of recovery pioneered by AA's "first 100", then isn't it more fitting to put AA's 12 Traditions in the article on Alcoholics Anonymous and not in this article? Surely at least some of the other fellowships have their own traditions.

Frankly, the AA article has been mangled by contributors attempting to argue about the merits of AA, the nature of alcoholism, and a host of irrelevant issues. I'd like to see an article that focuses on what the twelve step program of recovery is and is not. This doesn't seem to be the place to argue whether it's "good" or "effective", reasonable, unreasonable, helpful, counterproductive, etc. Just the facts, ma'am, just the facts. Don K. 10:06, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Where adopted, which is in nearly all of the fellowships, the changes made to the twelve traditions are as small as the changes made to the twelve steps. When programs don't use the AA traditions, it's usual not in favor of another set as much as it is abandoning them all together such as the case with Celebrate Recovery and LDS Family Services. The kind of unspoken criteria working on this and the List of twelve-step groups article was that if the fellowship doesn't more-or-less use the twelve steps and twelve traditions, they're not a twelve step group -- or only partially.
Efficacy of any kind of treatment, where assessed, has encyclopedic value. Really, if it's not the most relevant characteristic of any kind of treatment, I don't know what is. -- Craigtalbert (talk) 11:03, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Cultural Identity

The word "atheists" should be removed from the following phrase:

Anyone—atheists, agnostics, people of any religion or demonation—are able to participate.[28]

While it is true that atheists can go to 12-step meetings, they cannont enbrace any higher power (even a chair or "the group"). If they do, then they are not atheists. I would eliminate the sentence altogether if noone objects, since obviously no body has checked to se if "people of any religion" are able to participate in anything.Desoto10 (talk) 05:58, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

I believe it lists atheists in the article cited, but I will double check. I think there's a poster version of it linked, if you want to have a look. FYI: I'm an atheist. -- Craigtalbert (talk) 09:01, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

There is something wrong with this reference (or, more likely, I don't understand all of the shorthand in the ref). If you click on the actual title, you get the poster that you saw. However, if you click on the first set of numbers you get an unrelated article and if you click on the second set you get just the name of the "journal". In any case, atheists are not mentioned at all in the poster and so, unless somebody can actually come up with the article, I suggest omitting this ref entirely. It is not listed in PubMed, but I am sure that PubMed listing is not a requirement. A poster, by itself is certainly not suitable for a reference as they are not peer-reviewed and are often not very accurate. A poster is essentially a place-holder for the full article to come. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Desoto10 (talk • contribs) 06:58, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Sponsorship

In this section of the article there is no reference to the effectiveness of the sponsorship idea, either for the sponsor or the sponsoree. There is a reference:

Crape, BL, Latkin, CA, Laris, AS, Knowlton, AR. 2002. The effects of sponsorship in 12-step treatment of injection drug users. Drug Alcohol Depend. 1;65(3):291-301.

that concludes:

"Our investigation suggests that, for NA/AA sponsors in this study population, providing direction and support to other addicts is associated with improved success in sustained abstinence for the sponsors but does little to improve the short-term success of the persons being sponsored."

Should this reference and a sentence for it be included?Desoto10 (talk) 06:24, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

I think you should be bold and add it. :) -- Craigtalbert (talk) 09:04, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

OK, but first I have to learn how to add a reference. I'll be back. Desoto10 (talk) 05:50, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, I took a shot.Desoto10 (talk) 07:18, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Effectiveness

I added a section on effectiveness, since that is probably one of the things people are interested from an encyclopedia. I brought a ref from the AA article, from which said article should be removed, and placed it here with a little discussion. I can add citations for some of the sentances if required. I may have screwed up the reference list. sorry. Desoto10 (talk) 05:48, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

The opening sentences you'll need citations for. Also, a difficult thing on this article, is to use material that applies broadly to twelve-step groups. For instance, the effectiveness discussed in the article cited are just related to AA/NA, though I'd imagine they would extend to other twelve-step addiction recovery groups (MA, CMA, etc), but how well something like this would apply to Clutterers Anonymous or say Debtors Anonymous I don't know.
That being said, writing an article on twelve-step groups without over-focusing on AA or NA is like writing an article on the Transcendentalists trying to avoid talking about Emerson or Thoreau. -- Craigtalbert (talk) 16:59, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Non-twelve-step addiction recovery groups

I changed the crippled grammar in this section with my own crippled grammar. I think it is improved. Desoto10 (talk) 07:18, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Relationship with God

I think that AA is based on your relationship with God, so I think that the wiki page should talk more about God and recovery and not just recovery.16:36, 4 April 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cnn.medina (talk • contribs)


Problems With 12 Step Program Studies and Assesments-- Most Studies include people who have attended less than 10 meetings / and also people who have never worked the Steps

For many years the biggest problem with scientific studies of 12 Step programs has been that these studies include people who have only been to a few meetings.

These studies have also counted people who have never worked the 12 Steps.

Most such studies do not zero-in on long-term attendees (and the 12 Steps were designed to work over a longer period of time).

Furthermore-- even within the population of long-term group attendees, there is a smaller group of people whyo have actually worked 5 or more of the 12 Steps. People who have worked the 12 Steps are the valid study population since these are the only people who are actually working the Steps on a long-term basis. Yet most studies don't make these distinctions.

Consequently 'scientific' studies of 12 Step program effectiveness are often poorly constructed and don't even measure the application of the 12 Steps in one's daily life. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.227.84.101 (talk) 17:05, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Effectiveness

The paragraph in the effectiveness section kind of bothers me as it's mostly focused on AA and NA, things is this article should apply broadly to all twelve-step programs, while AA and NA may be the largest, they're just a fraction of the whole. For now, I'm going to move that information to the Effectiveness of Alcoholics Anonymous article. -- Scarpy (talk) 00:14, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Whoops it's all ready in there. -- Scarpy (talk) 00:21, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Guidelines on length of Further Reading sections

Any of you have input on this? -- Scarpy (talk) 00:23, 23 March 2008 (UTC)