As a person whose participated in aversion therapy to great success, I'm highly offended by the portrayal in this episode. Who wrote this? Clearly someone profiting from the inefficiency of AA.
If you don't know anything about rehabs or how they're rated. The only accurate statement is that aversion therapy is drastically more affective than AA. Which has a 90% failure rate. Meaning that 90% of people who attend an AA program are going to relapse in the first 90 days. Versus aversion therapy that only has 30% failure rate.
The blatant misrepresentation just reminds me of my experience with bias for AA and against aversion therapy.
I literally quit drinking alcohol 8 years ago in 10 days. Not 90 days, not 6 months 10 days. 10 days and I was back to my life, moving forward.
In this episode they mixed the two major formats for aversion therapy in a goofy way. Never did I drink full unwatered down shots of alcohol until I was basically poisoned. While getting shocked.
I attended treatment for weed as well as alcohol to basically give me a do over on everything.
How alcohol was handled was this. You would first drink ipecac, to induce nausea. Then a large glass of water mixed with salt, as the vomiting to come can leave you dehydrated.
After that we waited until the ipecac took affect. When I started feeling nauseous we'd start drinking watered down shots of whatever my formerly favorite alcohol was at the time. For me it was a lot of tequila some rum and by the end some wine. They tried to cover all bases. I actually trained myself, quite easily, to vomit up the shots as it made the next part last less time.
After you completed the amount of required shots for that phase, you returned to your room and had to sit with your head in a bucket or pan that had an alcohol soaked rag until you were fully sober. Sometimes you'd take another shot of ipecac to maintain the feeling of nausea. Meaning the more alcohol you consumed, the longer this section would last.
Never did you return home while alcohol was in your system. Furthermore they required one full week of sobriety, or perhaps 5 days, something between the two before beginning treatment.
Where the electric shock comes in was for weed. I would get wired up have a light shock applied while I would roll a joint of a placebo weed. Smoke it, and smoke a pipe. This section did not include actual weed. Just the shocks. The wild thing to me about it was that I could feel tingles in my brain after this one almost where my head was asking. Where's the buzz?
That was one half of the 10 day treatment. The other half they would put you under with some formula of "truth serum" and talk to your subconscious mind. Gauge the effectiveness of the treatment. You could also ask yourself questions through the doctors in this section. They would adjust the treatment according to your answers.
The whole process was run by registered nurses under supervision of medical doctors. They also had psychologists and seminars when you weren't in either treatment.
It quite literally changed my life for the better and had drastically changed how I relate to and view society. You ever notice how prevalent drinking is in social environments? Why is that ok?
The greatest flaw I see in AA is the mindset. Why do you have to focus and keep going back to the worst version of yourself? Aka always an addict. Why must that define you? I much prefer what I was taught. I have tendency towards addictive behaviors, yes. But I'm not an addict. I just don't drink anymore. Something that remains true as long as I continue to chose not to drink.
I can go to concerts in bars and parties, it doesn't affect me. I don't go to bars to hang out but I could. It never really appealed to me when I drank, so why would it now?
Horribly written episode slandering the most affective treatment for any kind of addiction.
Why is AA pushed so strongly? Because the inefficiency of it is very profitable. There's huge money in turn around, and you can blame the client. When it's the dated system that's the culprit. It's just not effective.
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