The term "dry drunk" appears to have originated sometime during the evolution of the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. Like many other notions, the dry drunk became part of the conventional wisdom of A.A. and was applied to a variety of emotional experiences, attitudes, and maladaptive cognitive processes taking place during recovery. Although the concept of the dry drunk originated in Alcoho...

Alcoholics Anonymous (Author postprint) in Journal of Substance Use, 8, 55–61 [Accessed: (date) from www.drugsandalcohol.ie] 1 Note: This is a pre-copy-editing, author-produced PDF of an article accepted for publication in Journal of Substance Use following peer review. The definitive publisher-authenticated version [NicGabhainn S (2003) Assessing sobriety and successful membership of Alcoholic...

OBJECTIVE To discuss the mechanism of action, the efficacy and the safety of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) in the treatment of alcoholism. METHOD The published works on effective treatments for alcoholism is briefly reviewed and a prospective multidisciplinary follow-up of recovery from alcoholism in two community cohorts of adolescent males followed from 1940 until the present day is reviewed. ...

The vast majority of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) members in the United States are white, and only a few studies have investigated the program's effectiveness for ethnic minorities. Project MATCH, a multisite research study aimed at developing guidelines for assigning alcoholics to appropriate treatment approaches, also assessed AA effectiveness for minority clients. Some differences in AA attenda...

A.A. groups create pressures and provide expectations that encourage some members to resume drinking. Members' responses to these relapses contribute to group solidarity and strengthen the boundaries between the norms of sobriety and deviant behavior.