The psychosocial benefits of alcoholics anonymous.

A quasi-experimental design was implemented to evaluate the attitudes of alcoholics toward themselves and others after they had worked all twelve steps of an AA program compared to those who had not yet completed all twelve steps. One hundred individuals who were attending AA meetings were selected so that one half had completed all of the steps and the other half had not. Participants were tested in individual sessions during which they completed a series of questionnaires. Measures were taken of global self-esteem, social self-esteem, social confidence, network trust, fear of negative evaluation, need for approval, preoccupation with relationships, discomfort with closeness, relationships as secondary, and optimism. A principal components analysis of participants' responses to these measures revealed that the factors being assessed could be divided into one regarding interpersonal insecurity and another regarding social potency. The data showed that alcoholics who had been able to stay in the program and work through all twelve steps had lower levels of interpersonal insecurity than those who were just beginning to work the steps. No significant differences were found in social potency between those who had completed the steps and those who had not completed the steps. Further research is needed to clarify the specific nature of changes that occur in personality as alcoholics work through the twelve steps within community-based AA programs.