A Script, or Woods's Road to Recovery?

Similar to the article I found last week, this article talks about AA’s affect on another kind of addiction-sexual. Tiger Woods’ press conference sparked discussions all over the nation: Was he sincere? Was it all fake? Was it scripted? A reporter from The New York Times wrote an article, “A Script, or Woods’s Road to Recovery?” because of a conversation he had in a bar similar to this. He wrote about how a man said Woods sounded scripted yet the statement he posed to the reader was, “as if that was so bad”. He then goes onto saying that this was a script he was reciting from, it is the first of the 12 steps program of addiction treatment. He refers to the “collective wisdom” of AA as the root of his script and has collective wisdom hyperlinked to the AA website. The author talks about the importance of these treatment programs like AA and how they get into the root of the problem, the emotional side, not just teaching you how to not drink, have sex, or do drugs.

I know that after Woods’ public apology came out, it was a big debate about whether or not it was real or fake. I feel as though this article does a great job supporting what AA and other addiction treatment programs do and really stands up for Woods in addition to all over recovering addicts out there. For people who have no personal experience with these programs, trying to understand that this was in fact genuine and only sounded scripted because it is a part of the program is hard, but this author makes it easier. This author makes AA and those programs shine.

Find article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/23/sports/golf/23vecsey.html

The Power and Promise of AA

Annie Driscoll on Tonic.Com posted an article entitled, “The Power of Promise of AA: Can it also help beat depression?” on February 10, 2010. While this article has no direct affiliation with AA as an organization it speaks wonders for what the organization does consciously and now apparently subconsciously. Driscoll says that according to a new study, AA now helps people overcome depression, “attending AA meetings actually lowered depression levels and improved moods overall.” The researchers said it may be in part due to the social aspect of the organization. This article promotes AA very well as it closes with a quote from Dr. John Kelly. “Most treatment programs refer patients to AA or similar 12 step groups, and now clinicians can tell patients that, along with supporting abstinence, attending meetings can help improve their mood. Who wouldn’t want that?” This demonstrates how supporters of AA are growing wildly within all fields as now this organization is providing aid in more than just overcoming the addiction.

Article can be found at: http://www.tonic.com/article/the-power-and-promise-of-aa-it-helps-stop-drinking-but-can-it-assist-with-depression/

Website PSAs

When looking on the Alcoholic Anonymous (AA) website, there is a specific section entitled “For the Media”. This section provides anyone with interesting public information from press releases to Public Service Announcements (PSA). Interestingly enough, there have been no press releases since 2008. Whether or not this is a good thing, I am not at liberty to say yet. However, I did find the PSA section very interesting. Their PSAs air all of the time and I liked that they had them all on the website for anyone to view. They had both video PSAs and audio ones. Their PSAs are very well done because they reach all audiences because there is no “typical” AA member. For the audio PSAs they have a catchy title for that specific sound-bite to hopefully gear to someone’s individual need. Whether it be “Drinking was no fun for me”, “All of a sudden, everything got crazy”, or “We’re all in this together”, one of these titles will ideally reach out to someone. In addition to these titles, they have a description of the person talking and have people of all ages, ethnicities, genders, etc. speak about their problem with alcohol. I think these PSAs are a great way for AA to advertise itself to the public.