Weekly Debrief - Edition the Fifth

Let the Debrief Commence!

Article 1:

AA Doesn’t Work and People Pretend it does: Stop

Alcoholics Anonymous has a measly 5 to 10 percent success rate. And yet the majority of the 15 billion state and federal governments spend substance abuse treatment goes to AA. According to the Cochrane Collaboration, “No experimental studies unequivocally demonstrated the effectiveness of AA”

Also, oddly most people don’t know how religious AA is. I wonder why…oh wait, yeah because they pretend they aren’t. They claim that they are a secular organization with a scientific approach. Yes, the fact that almost every step has to do with god means its secular. Yup.

AA wants to make you think that your addiction is a moral failing. This isn’t the case, folks. Addiction does not entail moral defectiveness. Often time’s people are aware of the risks and liabilities of addiction but they can’t do anything about it. It’s not a choice.

AA claims that the program does not fail only the patient fails. Hmmm, doesn’t seem likely. I think its time that our government spent more money generating programs that do help. And programs outside of AA ought to check and report how effective their treatment is ‘cough’ Sierra Tucson ‘cough’

Read up: http://www.salon.com/2014/03/23/the_pseudo_science_of_alcoholics_anonymous_theres_a_better_way_to_treat_addiction/

Article 2:

Parents, if it isn’t your Homework don’t Do it 

The Atlantic presents an interesting claim here. Apparently all that not-helping your mom did really didn’t make you dumber. It might have even been helpful.

“Researchers combed through nearly three decades’ worth of longitudinal surveys of American parents and tracked 63 different measures of parental participation in kids’ academic lives… Most measurable forms of parental involvement seem to yield few academic dividends for kids, or even to backfire—regardless of a parent’s race, class, or level of education.”

All that meddling the parents seems to make kids more anxious than enthusiastic about school. Perhaps what’s most interesting is that many postulate children from low-socioeconomic homes do poorly because their parents were not involved or did not care about education. Actually, this doesn’t seem to be the case. Especially the latter part of that statement. What matters more is that they do not have the financial and educational resources that children from higher income homes do have. Students from higher income homes are embedded into a culture of education and success. They don’t get to just hear about lawyers, they know one.

Read up:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/04/and-dont-help-your-kids-with-their-homework/358636/

Article 3: 

Hippies, Start Growing Our Weed

Mojo reports that all that weed you’re smoking ain’t exactly environmentally friendly. In fact the energy going into that joint of yours is enough to produce 18 pints of beer and creates enough emission to burn a 100-watt light bulb for 25 hours.

This ones got pictures!

Read up:

http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/03/marijuana-pot-weed-statistics-climate-change


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