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I have done research on addiction and I agree with you that its terrible. To me, that is what happens when the wrong science studies a phenomenon or seeks to study something that is not even scientific like the concept of addiction – which ended up my conclusion. What I understand is that (alcohol)addiction was a concept introduced by the temperance movement and only reluctantly acceptet by APA some years after antabus was discovered, though this version is probably somewhat conspirational and I cannot confirm it. But addiction “science” shows very clearly what happens when political and moral ideas seeps into medical science and doctors try to “fix” peoples lives without becoming socially engaged.

The critique of missing control groups is, however, naive in my opinion, unless you have very large sample sizes and control for socioeconomic factors as well as for life events. What AA does, in my view, is offer you support and possibly a new identity. Maybe you need more than that, maybe you need support, but not a new identity and you group enforces that, or maybe you need a new identity but is only offered support. Or maybe your group is just good or bad – just like every other group. Any other group could probably do the same job, but you might not be invitet into other groups and they might be less tolerant of relapses. From an epistemic point of view, AA is not very good, but as a social tool for changing your life I think it is quite effective, especially if other social support is scarce.

I think one of the most interesting studies on addiction is Bruce K Alexanders “Rat park” and he also have very interesting things to say about addiction in his Globalization of Addiction”. Unfortunatey his concepts become too broad.

It is an interesting subject though, but getting an interesting hold on it is hard.

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Aaron White – NIAAA/NIH – rat models for ‘blackouts’
George Koob – NIAAA/NIH – rat models for human ‘addiction’
Keith Humphreys – Psychiatrist – “Scientific evidence alone is not sufficient basis for health policy”
Thomas McClellan – Psychiatrist – ‘addiction is a mangeable disease like diabetes’

Also there is one huge blindspot in AA research: suicides. I suspect AA greatly increases risk of suicide, but of course expect that inconvenient truth to be suppressed.

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