What is Reddit's opinion of Narcotics Anonymous Step Working Guides?

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

> I have been working steps the 'green and gold' way

For people wondering what they are talking about: https://www.amazon.com/Narcotics-Step-Working-Guides-Anon/dp/1557763704

I’m not going to go in to a “you’re not working the steps hard enough” spiel because I don’t think that’s needed here. I have, posting to this subreddit, and seeing how some elements of the press have become very hostile to AA and enabling drinkers in the last decade, have seen plenty of people rationalizing and planning their next drink. This poster doesn’t come off to me as someone being dishonest or playing games with the program.

According to the preface of the second edition of the AA Big Book, among those who come and really try, 75% get clean and sober. The other 25% do not. It’s nothing like the malarkey out there about AA having a “5% success rate”—it’s 75% among people who go to one or more meeting a week, according to one 1999 study—but there are people who regularly go to meetings, work the steps, yet relapse again.

My thought is this: If someone comes in the the rooms of AA because they’re drinking every day, starts going to meetings, doesn’t do any dishonest stuff like the marijuana maintenance program, but yet still relapses every 30 days, they are doing a lot better than they were before. While abstinence is the ultimate goal, “The principles we have set down are guides to progress”, and a drink once every 30 days is a lot better than drinking every day.

I’m thinking, since this relapse issue is so prevalent, that maybe we’re looking at other mental health issues which should also be treated. There’s a reason I get upset when people play doctor in the rooms of AA, because that is not the program I work based on the first 164 pages of the Big Book:

>God has abundantly supplied this world with fine doctors, psychologists, and practitioners of various kinds. Do not hesitate to take your health problems to such persons. Most of them give freely of themselves, that their fellows may enjoy sound minds and bodies. Try to remember that though God has wrought miracles among us, we should never belittle a good doctor or psychiatrist.

A relapse is not a failure. Maybe more meetings will fix it—that seems to be the case with many people who relapse—maybe a combination of 12-step, therapy (CBT etc.), and even doctor prescribed non-addictive medications is what’s needed here.

That said, I’ve worked with chronic relapsers with other mental health issues, and I personally haven’t seen one both do 90 meetings in 90 days and relapse. But there might be legitimate logistical reasons why 90 in 90 just isn’t possible.

I know this much: Alcoholism is an insidious disease which is as deadly as any cancer. AA helps a large number of people who finally stop lying to themselves and start going to meetings and working the program, but there are people out there who still struggle with relapse, even when working the 12 steps to the best of their ability.

Interesting! I Googled the book that you mentioned and found this. https://www.amazon.ca/Narcotics-Step-Working-Guides/dp/1557763704

It looks really similar to the one that I have. Maybe it's time to pull it out again!