User:Tristessa de St Ange/Drafts/Effectiveness of Alcoholics Anonymous rewrite

The effectiveness of Alcoholics Anonymous, the success of the Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) twelve step program in treating alcoholism, is a subject of ongoing interdisciplinary research and debate in a multitude of academic and non-academic contexts. The precise definition of "effectiveness", "efficacy" and "success" varies according to the particular field of reference investigating the practices, methods and success, and in what terms these concepts are framed in analysis.

In general, clinical studies have yielded no overall consensus. Studies have been based either on results obtained from individuals attending meetings run under the umbrella of the AA organisation itself, or from similar twelve-step recovery programmes based on the twelve-step approach run externally from the AA organisation; generically termed, in this latter case, as twelve-step facilitation (TSF). A Cochrane systematic review investigating the efficacy of both AA attendance and non-AA twelve-step programmes concluded that "no experimental studies unequivocally demonstrated the effectiveness of AA [Alcoholics Anonymous]" in treating alcoholism, based on a meta-analysis of the results of eight trials involving a total of 3417 individuals ; this review, however, notes that further efficacy studies are needed, and the presence of flaws in one included study regarding the definition of success of interventions.