The statement “by focusing on abstinence you are setting a significant part of your patients up for failure” sounds like advocating “moderate drinking” to me.
If we’re not telling alcoholics that abstinence is the goal, we’re telling them they can “moderately drink”. “moderate drinking”, simply put, is what we call non-abstinence for alcoholics.
This is very different from saying that a one-day relapse is a complete failure, and, yes, I agree that Alcoholics Anonymous is too focused on raw sobriety time.
> The statement “by focusing on abstinence you are setting a significant part of your patients up for failure” sounds like advocating “moderate drinking” to me.
Sorry, that was not my intention. Like I stated earlier in the thread, it’s been awhile since I reviewed the literature. I’m not a psychologist, and I’m neither a recipient nor a practitiner of Cognitive Behavior Therapy for Substance Abuse Syndrome.
That said I’m sure therapists have a way of negatively reinforcing the damaging drinking behavior in such a way that a single night out is not considered a failure. I don’t know how they do it, but they are experts and I’m sure they know how to.
If we’re not telling alcoholics that abstinence is the goal, we’re telling them they can “moderately drink”. “moderate drinking”, simply put, is what we call non-abstinence for alcoholics.
This is very different from saying that a one-day relapse is a complete failure, and, yes, I agree that Alcoholics Anonymous is too focused on raw sobriety time.