How long does it take to go through a formal Alcoholics Anonymous program?
Question by greengirl: How long does it take to go through a formal Alcoholics Anonymous program?
Best answer:
Answer by Aileen
12 weeks
Give your answer to this question below!
February 16th, 2012 at 10:58 pm
It takes as long as it takes for YOU to work your way through all 12 steps. That’s usually a lot longer than 12 weeks .
February 16th, 2012 at 11:31 pm
24 hours. There are 12 steps in the recovery process but the program was designed to keep people sober one day at a time. The AA program is not affiliated with any rehabs or nothin like that. They have meetings held regularly and encourage their members to attend on a daily basis.
February 17th, 2012 at 12:16 am
There’s not really a set time for AA programs. Everyone is different. There are 12 steps – that doesn’t mean you’ll be done in 12 weeks. Honestly anyone who can in that short of time is extremely lucky.
February 17th, 2012 at 12:35 am
The original members would be pushed through the program in days or weeks; however the last three steps are ongoing and largely encapulate the content of the first nine anyway (as a form of maintenance and development)
February 17th, 2012 at 12:58 am
You can work through the steps fairly quick if you have a sponsor that will allow you to go quick. AA is a very controlling program and they will tell you it is a lifetime program. AA wants you to stay with them for life. I was in AA just a short time but I went through the first few steps quick but then my sponsor stopped me and would not allow me to work with other alcoholics because in his opinion I was not ready. I got into trouble when I said I had a problem because I choose to drink and choose to bing drink. AA says we have no choice and only god can get and keep us sober so therefore it is a lifetime program.
February 17th, 2012 at 1:20 am
What do you mean by a ‘formal’ AA program, rehab? Treatment?
When a person joins AA it is supposedly for life. Doing the 12 steps does not mean your time in AA is up, it is an ongoing, life-long process. AA teaches that you are never cured, that only by doing the program properly (and there is no agreement on what properly is) are you granted a reprieve from drinking on a daily basis.
The rehabs I’m familiar with last for two weeks to 18 months, most for 30 days. Out patient treatment vary from weeks to months and may last a year or more. The amount of time is often dependent on financial considerations, a person ‘graduates’ when the insurance runs out. There is intensive outpatient which is 4 to 8 hours a day and relapse prevention programs which are usually a few hours a few days a week.
Rehabs and treatment programs are not considered AA, although over 90% of them are based on AA and are basically indoctrination center for AA. Sort of an “AA boot camp”.
February 17th, 2012 at 2:01 am
The “formal” Alcoholics Anonymous program to which you are referring is the “Twelve Steps”. So many people confuse the ‘the Fellowship” with “the program” – fellowship or “going to meeting” is for as long as or whenever you want. However the suggested Twelve Steps (the Program) is designed to be begun and completed within a matter of days depending on each individual. Since each of the twelve steps does require immediate action into the next upon completion. Traditionally (as well as historically) the program took less than total of thirty days before the desired result occurred. Bill Wilson was nine days, Dr. Bob about three weeks. In My case it was forty four days, but that was because I am slow starter and particularly prone to balking. The men I sponsor do it in around four weeks.
It is a race. The key is in remembering that most people in AA don’t consciously know the difference between the Fellowship and the program. They think that by attending meetings of AA that they are utilizing AA’s program of recovery – they are not. What do we do – stop drinking THEN pursue spiritually – or do we purse spirituality first SO THAT we have a spiritual awakening and consequently stop drinking?
Which idea do you prefer? Which one is the standing proposal heard in your Group?
Go to any meeting and you will hear the former idea pushed vehemently – religiously.
“Just don’t drink – go to meetings – THEN when you’re ready we’ll talk about the steps.”
OK? “But what about the real alcoholic” (21:1) who if he could “just don’t drink” then would not ever need to come to AA in the first place? You see the problem?
If alcoholics had the choice to “put the plug in the jug” then the problem would already be solved – without the spiritual experience that is the result of doing the steps. It becomes obvious that anyone who has such power over alcohol isn’t even an alcoholic (powerless) in the first place – and never need come to AA in the second.
People who push the meetings and fellowship first – BEFORE the Steps and Spirituality that is the result of taking those steps – ought to come to the funerals I have had to attend.
They have been the funerals of the people who needed to get to God as soon as possible and who heard the advice middle-of-the-road solutions based guys, brandishing medallions, spouting pithy and practiced “shares” from their folding chairs – telling them to “take their time” and “its not a race” – saying that “meeting makers make it” and rarely if ever talk about God or the Steps.
These are folks who somehow – probably because they aren’t even real alcoholics – have been able to rely upon the human aid of meetings and the camaraderie of fellowship to “stay away from a drink for one day” and have never experienced the insanity of the kind of obsession that us real McCoy’s experience.
Maybe that is why when they speak of “insanity” it consists of the stupid things they do in life – but doesn’t include any reference to a “queer mental condition”, “strange mental blank spot” or “peculiar mental twist” that the co-authors describe and with which ALL real alcoholics can identify.
“Drinking too much-too often’ does not even approach the insanity of the first drink that real alkies experience. When we alkies hear this, it seems so easy – confusing “simple” with “easy” is one of the things we do best. We take that easy way out – and WHAM – we get struck drunk – like a freight train hitting a stalled car on the tracks.
In talk about sobriety it is commonly thought that in order to stop drinking and remain sober, “You have to REALLY want it!” “It” being “sobriety”. Anyone who believes this is true is very naive about the malady, yet I have heard respected and experienced “addictions counselors” use just this terminology.
Really wanting sobriety never helped me. In fact “really wanting” sobriety and not being able to achieve it is what helped define me as an alcoholic in the first place.
If I could achieve anything I wanted, if only I wanted it badly enough, I would have never have proceeded through the tortuous life of a real alcoholic to begin with. Trust me. I have spent almost thirty years being sick and tired of being sick and tired, and even THAT miserable life was no match for the one-two punch of true alcoholism – obsession of mind COMBINED with physical craving. If a real alcoholic could stop drinking just because it made him sick and tired and then got fed up with being sick and tired – he wouldn’t be a real alcoholic.
As real alcoholics we cannot stop drinking EVEN THOUGH we are sick and tired of being sick and tired. Ee use the phrases like “willing to go to any length” – - It is possible to really want to be sober but not be willing to go to any length? I don’t know. Those dead guys don’t talk. They have lost the race – the obsession won.
God help me, I love AA more than anything on earth. I love meetings, friends, Traditions, AA History, Concepts ALL OF IT. It’s right up with my kids, my wife, family and God Himself. But unless Primary Purpose is our “primary purpose”- and we cut out all this treatment center crap that treats AA’s Twelve Steps not as a solution but as another competing “Recovery Model” from which to garner market share – then I’m afraid we are going to find ourselves as cooked as Christmas Turkey. Hope that helps.
Peace and Love,
Danny S – RLRA
Real Live Recovered Alcoholic
http://recoveredalcoholic.blogspot.com
February 17th, 2012 at 2:38 am
Well, regular alcoholics can get through the program in anywhere from six to twelve weeks, IMO. But… the REAL fundamentalist Christian alcoholics have to spend the rest of their lives in that living Hell.
February 17th, 2012 at 2:53 am
There is no such thing as a “formal” AA program, so I don’t know what you are talking about.
However, the prevailing view among AA members is that you never graduate, which suggests that the answer to your question may be “forever”. This is one reason why I do not recommend AA to people, although I did go for meetings for many years and “worked the steps” all the way through several times. I got better: they said I was still sick and would die without going to meetings for the rest of my life.