ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS

I need a 12-14 page APA formatted concept paper. Please follow the example precisely.

Running head: ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS 1 An Empirical Research Study on Alcoholics Anonymous Statistical Effectiveness Wayland Baptist University ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS 2 List of Nomenclature  Abstinence: The practice of restraining from alcohol.  Alcoholics Anonymous (AA): A fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength, and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism.  Assessment: A total evaluation of the program through each of the participants’ responses.  Experimental group: The group that receives the treatment during the study.  Percent Days Abstinent (PDA): Self-reported drinking data for the recorded time frames. ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS 3 Chapter 1 Introduction After 85 years of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), results have been recorded to prove and confirm its effectiveness. Testimony after testimony has revealed satisfactory results from current and former members. Nonetheless, on the contrary, experts have challenged the 12-step hegemony. It is proclaimed that if the program does not work, it is the participant’s lack of interest in committing fully to the program. Although this could be the reason for the lack of effectiveness in the participants, what if the program itself is insufficient to transform people’s lives? This research study seeks to understand and determine the overall effectiveness of one of the most common and successful addiction recovery organizations in the nation. The primary focus of the study will be to test the traditional 12-step program since is the core of their treatment process. The study will also target their main philosophy which is to help the alcoholstruggling individual to stop drinking, maintain sobriety, and find holistic healing of the mind, body, and spirit. However, taking recovery ownership is a very difficult journey that not all those who participate in the program get to enjoy. Thus, the focus of the study is to determine the success rate of middle-age adults who will participate in the program for a year. Their Percent Days Abstinent (PDA) will be measure at certain time frames and will be recorded for data analysis. Method An experimental group of alcohol-dependent adults will be assessed during a time frame of 18 months to measure the effectiveness of AA. Participants will attend closed meetings twice a week for 12 months and commit to a trial period of 6 months for a final evaluation of their total ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS 4 results. Participants will be asked to meet with a counselor at their cite after concluding sessions in order to record data. Participants The participants in this study are individuals who self-identified as alcohol-dependent adults. The group consists of 30 men and 30 women between the ages of 20-30 years of age. The participant will not be forced to finish the program; thus, they can drop out at any time they see appropriate. The study does not discriminate against gender, race, or religion. However, personal data will be recorded for a deeper understanding of the final results. Materials AA Twelve Steps (Alcoholics Anonymous, 1981) 1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol — that our lives had become unmanageable. 2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. 3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. 4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. 5. Admitted to God, to us and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. 6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. 7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings. 8. Make a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all. 9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. 10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it. 11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS 5 12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs. Procedure Participants are required to attend AA closed meetings twice a week for 12 months. They will be required to participate, engage, and commit to the AA Twelve Steps. There will be a pretreatment assessment, during-treatment assessment at 6 months, and final treatment assessment at 12 months, and a follow-up assessment at 18 months. Data will be recorded for each member individually to measure the effectiveness of the program. At each of the time-periods, participants will record the PDA. In other words, participants will record the average percent of days that they were abstinent during each time frame. Purpose of the Study The purpose of the study is to collect data based on participants’ self-reports to evaluate the effectiveness of AA. It is very difficult and close to impossible to create a rehab program that works effectively for everyone. Each alcoholic is different, thus, each one needs and deserves the attention and treatment necessary to overcome not only their drinking problem but to solve the deep-rooted problem that brought them to their lowest point. Therefore, this study is relevant to understand how beneficial this program for middle-age adults who are trying to cope with the ups and downs of life. Research Questions This study follows the research question: Does the number of PDA start to increase or decrease as time progresses? The study will examine the following hypotheses: 1. Are the participants to remain abstinent even when they are no longer in the program, that is, the time between the 12 months and 18 months frame? ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS 6 2. Is the effectiveness of Alcoholics Anonymous restrained for a certain amount of time? Limitations of the Study The study will record data based on participants’ self-reports to their appointed counselors. Thus, there might be a lack of veracity and legitimacy from the participants’ responses. Additionally, since the is only conducted for 12 months, this might affect how participants would have reacted if the study was conducted for a longer or shorter time. Additionally, since the study will be using a nonexperimental research design, there might be a limitation as to demonstrating cause and effect. In other words, certain components of the study will not be evaluated and that might be key components of the overall effectiveness of the study. Such as that participants might feel pressure to complete the program and lower their PDA just because they know that they are being documented for the experiment. Significance Since the beginnings of AA in 1935, there has been great controversy regarding its effectiveness and success. AA and other 12-step programs claim to be saving lives and families, but there is not much data available corroborate the evidence. This study will help to provide additional data regarding how effective this program is for 12 months in a group of middle-age adults. CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW What is the effectiveness of AA? In order to answer this question, one must first ask if alcoholism is a moral failing, psychological problem, or a medical disorder. AA has been widely recognized as being a representative example of abstinence-based treatment with a spiritual ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS 7 affiliation. Nonetheless, there has been a great debate on the effectiveness of AA because research and studies done on this organization approached it from different points of view. If alcoholism comes from a moral failing, then it should be treated by the church; if it comes from a psychological problem, then it should be treated by psychiatry; and lastly, if it comes from a medical disorder, then it should be treated by medical care. AA has been greatly criticized for treating alcoholism from a spiritual approach. As eleven out of the twelve steps talk about redemption and restoration, eight steps refer to God or a Power greater than humanity who is capable of transforming and changing any human failure, and just one refers to alcohol alone. There is no denying that spirituality is embedded in the 12 steps, thus, the procedure has been used in countless spiritual groups and local churches. However, AA has claimed that they are not “allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization or institution,” (“Frequently Asked Questions About AA,” 2009) and greatly emphasized that anyone can join regardless of their spiritual stand. Regardless of the great skepticism that religion can improve a person’s alcohol addiction, research demonstrates a positive correlation between these two concepts. According to Unity Behavioral Health, “Spirituality or religion can help a person find purpose in his or her life, fill a void, cope with mental distress and adhere more to morality (2007).” In other words, spirituality influences positively a person’s abstinent process and increases the chance of succeeding in the quest for sobriety (Landau, 2010). Contrary to the spiritual approach, some argue that AA has a deep problem by confusing correlation with causation, meaning that drunkenness is associated or caused by immorality. Hence, since most of the 12-steps refer to spiritual connection, it is understood that those who do not believe in the existence of a higher power could find the program to be conflicting, problematic, and challenging. There is a clear absence of scientific evidence in the twelve steps ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS 8 and their approach. For those holding this position, they state that meetings and prayers are not enough to combat a medical disorder. There is a great need to “overhaul our treatment system and provide more evidence-based options” (Szalavitz, 2017). Regardless of all the mentioned opinions and positions, good or bad, AA is an abbreviation that most Americans recognize because this organization has been around since 1935. According to data, in 2000, “90 percent of American addiction treatment programs employed the 12-step approach” (Szalavitz, 2017). Additionally, the following are results done by a 2007 Alcoholics Anonymous Random Survey done in 8,000 anonymous members (“Efficiency of Alcoholics Anonymous,” 2014):  33% had been sober for 10 years or more  12% had been sober for between five years and 10 years  24% had been sober for between one year and five years  31% had less than a year of sobriety under their belts It is important to clarify once again that “although the 12-steps include references to God, AA is not a religious organization. Members may interpret the idea of a higher power in any way they like” (“How Alcoholics Anonymous works,” 2007, p. 4). Likewise, there is a misconception about AA rejecting medicine or psychotherapy, which is quite the opposite. Members are “encouraged to seek psychological help and/or take psychiatric drugs if needed” (“How Alcoholics Anonymous works,” 2007, p. 5). Others simply doubt its efficacy to treat a world-wide problem that has existed throughout history. They argue that there is no compelling evidence that AA is effective in reducing alcohol abuse. The results mentioned above are put into question for several reasons (“Efficiency of Alcoholics Anonymous,” 2014):  Respondents were not asked how long they had been taking part in AA ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS 9  Respondents were not asked if they relapsed or slipped during their period of sobriety.  There is no indication of how many people started to use AA and left to find sobriety through other means.  There is no indication of how many people left AA and relapsed. In addition to the bullet points provided by the American Addiction Centers Editorial Staff, positive results are disputed because it is impossible to determine the effectiveness of a program when there are no studies that include the people who tried it and did not find it helpful. Thus, this lack of evidence undoubtedly puts into question AA success rates. Summary AA started as a small Christian organization and it has grown into a well-known social organization consisting of autonomous local groups. Its popularity consists of a free of charge membership with the only requirement for those wanting to join is a true desire to stop drinking. (Swora, 2004, p. 187-188). As simple as it seems, it is not. There has been a great debate for its efficacy and ability to help those wanting to change their alcohol dependency and transform their lives for the better. Those doubting its efficacy believe that there is a very low possibility that members will succeed in reaching sobriety. Unless there are added interventions such as medical and psychological, their efficacy will continue to stay low. On the contrary, those in support state that 85+ years of practice are more than enough to prove its effectiveness. Ending with the question stated in the beginning, what is the effectiveness of AA? It depends on person to person. For some people, it works wonders, and for others, it simply does not work. The only sure thing in all of this is that there is help available for those in need, whether it be AA or other organizations. The first step is recognizing that there is a problem and ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS 10 the second step is to look for a support group that would help those to achieve and maintain sobriety. CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY As mentioned in Chapter 1, this study is designed to answer the following questions: (1) Does the number of PDA start to increase as time progresses? (2) Are the participants to remain abstinent even when they are no longer in the program, that is, the time frame between the 12 months and 18 months? (3) Is the effectiveness of Alcoholics Anonymous restrained for a certain amount of time? The methodology used in this study is described in the following sections: research design, instrumentation, procedure, participants, and data analysis. Research Design The study research design is a relational meaning that these questions will describe the relationship between AA and PDA. Furthermore, the study is a quantitative design in the type of nonexperimental research study. The study is designed to determine the overall effectiveness of AA in a cohort of individuals in 12 months of attendance. Instrumentation The primary resource that will be used is an AA meeting group as well as the traditional 12-step program. Participants will be placed in three different local AA meeting groups based on proximity to their home locations. Participants will also be responsible to maintain a journal in which they will provide their PDA for that specific time frame. Procedure The research study will be conducted for approximately 18 months. First, participants who self-identify as having drinking problems will be chosen and divided into three different groups. Each group will be required to attend AA closed meetings twice a week for 12 months. ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS 11 Second, there will be a pre-treatment assessment, during-treatment assessment at 6 months, and final treatment assessment at 12 months, and a follow-up assessment at 18 months. Participants will meet with a counselor at their site at the mentioned time frames and hand over their reports. Counselors will not conduct any type of intervention in order to not interfere with the therapy given at AA meetings. Their only responsibility will be to collect data related to the research. The third and final step will be for participants to continue with the follow-up even when the AA meetings have stopped. They will have a scheduled meeting with their appointed counselor 6 months after their last AA meeting. Participants Participants for this research study will be randomly selected with the only criteria being that they must be alcoholics wanting to become sober. The participants must self-identified as alcohol-dependent adults with an unbiased attitude towards the AA program. The participant pool will consist of 30 men and 30 women between the ages of 20-30 years of age from various cultural backgrounds. Maintain the anonymity of the participants will be a priority, thus, participants will never be asked to reveal their names and identities in their reports. Reports will only be asked for race, age, and gender to have more concrete data all while maintaining the participants’ privacy. Data Analysis The final results will be analyzed and displayed in a frequency distribution table with the listed columns being PDA Frequencies and Time. The PDA scores of the participants will be averaged up for each time frame: the pre-treatment assessment, during-treatment assessment at 6 months, final treatment assessment at 12 months, and a follow-up assessment at 18 months. Additionally, the same data will be presented as a histogram bar for a clearer illustration of the data. ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS 12 Table 1 PDA Frequencies Time X Day 1 X 6 Months X 12 Months X 18 Months Note: Since the Table starts from day 1, participants will be asked if they are sober on the first day of treatment. If yes, it will be counted as 1 for each participant; if answered no, it will be counted as 0 for each participant. Figure 1 – Histogram Note: Histogram graph does not contain actual data. ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS 13 References Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. (1981). Twelve steps and twelve traditions. New York. Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. (2009). Frequently Asked Questions About A.A. New York. American Addiction Centers Editorial Staff. (2014, March 20). Efficiency of Alcoholics Anonymous. Retrieved April 7, 2020, from https://luxury.rehabs.com/alcoholtreatment/efficiency-of-aa/ How Alcoholics Anonymous works. (2007). Harvard Mental Health Letter, 24(1), 4–6. Swora, M. G. (2004). The rhetoric of transformation in the healing of alcoholism: The twelve steps of alcoholics anonymous. Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 7(3), 187– 209. https://doi-org.waylandbu.idm.oclc.org/10.1080/13674670310001602445 Szalavitz, M. (2014, February 10). After 75 Years of AA, It’s Time to Admit We Have a Problem. Retrieved April 7, 2020, from https://psmag.com/social-justice/75-yearsalcoholics-anonymous-time-admit-problem-74268 UMHealthSystem. (2007, March 19). Spirituality increases as alcoholics recover. Retrieved April 9, 2020, from https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-03/uomhsia031907.php

*Online library for Liberty University and University of Phoenix

* Definition of terms – 10-12 that are to be put in own terms/definitions

*Do not need a Table of Contents or Abstract Page

* Introduction should be 4-5 sentences.

* Chapter 1 – How the paper is planned out; what research method is planned on being used.

* Chapter 2 Literature review – Gleam from what you learned, where you got the material and a summary statement.

* Chapter 3 Methodology – Give a more summarized summary of how the methodology went.

* Bibliography of References – 6-8 references (only the ones used)

* Make sure the questions are probative

The Concept Paper
(The Big Class Project)
In this course, you will need to acquire both the skills to effectively read research and the skills
to be at least a beginner in writing research. The best way to learn to do both is to complete a
research project and write it.
But there’s a problem with that approach…it takes (usually) a lot more time than is available in
a single semester, and certainly more time than is available in an eight-week term.
So instead of creating a full research study, collecting data, analyzing it, and writing the results,
we will complete what is commonly called a “Concept Paper.”
This isn’t an unnecessary short cut. All research projects will have some type of concept paper.
This is a short summary explaining what the project is, why it is important, and how it will be
carried out. The concept paper also reveals to the researcher where there are voids in thinking,
gaps in planning, and holes in the process. Research can’t be done on the fly. It must be
carefully planned. Researchers never know what the data will reveal to them, but they always
must know how the will go about collecting, analyzing, and reporting the data.
Typically, a concept paper contains…
1. …a clear description of the research topic, including what is already known about the
topic.
2. …a primary, one-sentence research question. (Often, there will be additional secondary
research questions as well.) The concept paper should connect the primary question to
the existing literature.
3. …a demonstration and explanation of why it is important to answer the research
question. This might include things like: (a) what good comes of the answer? (b) why is
this project worth anyone’s time? (c) why should this topic be of interest to others in my
field of study?
4. …a description of how you plan to answer the research question. This might include
a. an outline of how the proposed project will be logically structured
b. a description of the data that you plan to collect or use
c. a description of how you will collect or gather these data
d. a description of where you will gather or collect these data
e. a description of how you will analyze these data, including statistical tools
5. …a statement of the limitations of this research, specifically things it cannot discover (and
why).
6. …a summary of any ethical issues you expect to arise in the research process.
7. …a bibliography.
Concept papers will typically use three to seven typed pages (around 750 to 2000 words), but
may vary from that somewhat. In any case, the point of the paper is to provide a clear
summary of the research project. It should enable a casual reader to understand what you are
investigating, why it is important, and how the investigation will proceed.
For the purposes of CNSL 5302 (this class), we will divide the concept paper into three chapters.
The first chapter will include all the introductory material, the hypotheses statements, the
research question(s), descriptions of the subjects, the importance of the study, and so on.
The second chapter will be a review of the literature (lit review). The lit review does not need to
be exhaustive, but it needs to demonstrate that you have looked at enough of the literature on
your topic to know (in general) what is known, what is not known, and where there are any
controversies on the subject.
The third chapter will be a methods chapter, and will have descriptions of how the data will be
collected, analyzed, and summarized. It will need to include some information about statistical
tests and graphics that will be used, but you do not need to provide any results from these tests
(since you aren’t collecting data).
At the end, you’ll need to provide a bibliography. You will be citing sources formally in your lit
review, as well as some in your introduction. You may also include some work that you won’t
cite in the concept paper but know you will use once you collect and analyze the data. As with
the lit review, the bibliography does not need to be exhaustive, but needs to be broad and you
need to be sure nothing is written in the paper that is not properly cited (plagiarism can happen
in concept papers just like real papers).
Do not write an abstract. The abstract is usually the last thing written after completing a
research project, and since you won’t be collecting or analyzing data, you won’t really be able
to write a meaningful abstract.
Here is perhaps the *biggest* problem students run headlong in to: A research paper is NOT A
BOOK REPORT! You may have called writing a book report “research” in the past, but that is no
longer true. Research involves collecting original data and analyzing it, not simply looking stuff
up about your topic. You still will look stuff up and summarize it, but that is now only a small
part of the research (your Chapter 2, in fact). Again, you don’t have time to collect much data in
this 8-week course, but you do have time to set up the plan to do that, and that’s what you’ll be
doing for this concept paper.