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Treating Individuals Convicted for an Alcohol Related Crime Essay

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Introduction
Alternative Treatments to the Classical Alcoholics Anonymous Abstinence Approach are More Effective for Treating Individuals Convicted for an Alcohol Related Crime
In this paper I am going to discuss the extreme importance of finding a variety of effective treatments for individuals with an alcohol problem. My focus will be on offenders that committed a violent crime under the influence of alcohol. I will focus on the importance for society to treat these individuals effectively and describe and compare different treatment approaches to the classical Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) treatment. Furthermore I will evaluate in how far this treatments are more appropriate for treating these individuals. To address this topic I suggest …show more content…

According to AA, alcoholics will never be able to drink in a safe way, like it is demonstrated in the popular AA saying “One drink, one drunk”. The disease model implies that “alcoholics experience intense cravings over which they have no control; even one drink will awaken this craving” (Alternatives to Twelve-Step Programs). To control these cravings AA developed a twelve step model, which includes firstly, that members need to admit their powerlessness over alcohol and, as a consequence to that they have to develop a strong believe in a higher power.(Alternatives to twelve step models) As we can see clearly spirituality plays a significant role in AA treatment.
There are several aspects of AA that have been shown to be possibly problematic for some individuals with alcohol problems (Alternatives to twelve step models). The first and most important problem is the focus on complete abstinence. Because only giving up drinking completely is accepted many individuals that might want to minimize their drinking will be excluded. The second is labelling alcoholism as a disease. By putting a label on it, it could lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy. When people believe that they have a disease they might be more likely to give up trying to stop drinking because they start acting according to their role as being “sick” (alternatives to 12step model). A study by Miller and

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