{"id":1898,"date":"2016-06-01T16:48:56","date_gmt":"2016-06-01T16:48:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pgdf.org\/?p=1898"},"modified":"2016-09-19T15:26:19","modified_gmt":"2016-09-19T15:26:19","slug":"william-l-white-and-dr-john-kelly-on-disengaged-style-of-aud-recovery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pgdf.org\/william-l-white-and-dr-john-kelly-on-disengaged-style-of-aud-recovery\/","title":{"rendered":"William L. White and Dr. John Kelly on \u2018disengaged\u2019 style of AUD recovery"},"content":{"rendered":"

William L. White is a prolific writer who has written or co-written 18 books and hundreds of articles, research reports and book chapters on addiction and recovery. In a February 2016 post on his website<\/a>, he and Dr. John Kelly, Associate Professor of Psychiatry in Addiction Medicine at Harvard Medical School, take a look at a style of recovery not often examined despite its potential to add important information to the recovery conversation.<\/p>\n

In the post<\/a>, White and Kelly review the existing data on those who use a \u2018disengaged style\u2019 of recovery. This term refers to those who attend 12-Step or other mutual aid meetings in the initial phase of their recovery from alcohol use disorder (AUD), but eventually disengage from attending meetings even as they continue sustained recovery.<\/p>\n

White and Kelly quote Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) co-founder Bill Wilson, who stated in 1969 that in addition to the active members of AA, there are hundreds of thousands of \u201crecovered AA\u2019s on the sidelines who do not get caught up in the active statistics, people who have remained for the greater part sober, who are carrying AA attitudes and practices and philosophies into the community life.\u201d White and Kelly say this illustrates that there are a number of individuals who successfully use the \u2018disengaged\u2019 or \u2018positive disengagement\u2019 style of recovery to maintain AUD remission.<\/p>\n

A 2005 study<\/a> examining AA involvement after treatment for alcoholism found that for those who were heavily involved in AA in their early recovery years, but whose attendance at AA meetings had dropped drastically five years later, the rate of abstinence was 79% at one year follow-up and about 60% at year three and year five follow-up. This suggests that while there may be some risk to disengaging from a mutual recovery group, there is also a high level of abstinence even after disengagement. The research team concluded, \u201c\u2026contrary to AA lore, many who connect only for a while do well afterwards.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another 2005 study<\/a> which looked for similar effects in Narcotics Anonymous, Cocaine Anonymous, and other 12-Step groups, found that for a group of people who did not regularly attend 12-Step meetings but who did participate in related activities, such as sponsorship contact and reading literature from the 12-Step programs, their recovery outcomes were similar to those of people who regularly attended 12-Step meetings. The results of this study suggest that active 12-Step participation was more important than meeting attendance.<\/p>\n

White and Kelly note the lack of studies on long-term outcomes and sustainability of recovery for those with a disengaged recovery style but draw some preliminary conclusions from the scant data that has been collected on this topic:<\/p>\n