12-Step Therapy and Women with and without Social Phobia: A Study of the Effectiveness of 12-Step Therapy to Facilitate Alcoholics Anonymous Engagement

Abstract

Alcoholism treatment often encourages involvement in Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). Little provision is made for women with social phobia (SP), who have been reported to have worse outcomes in 12-step facilitation (TSF) relative to cognitive behavioral therapy. This study examined whether SP moderated the effects of gender for these women in TSF. One hundred thirty-three SP alcoholics assigned to TSF (35 females and 98 males) in Project MATCH were compared to a no-SP control group. SP women drank earlier and more intensely than no-SP women and all males, had equivalent completion of Step 5, and were less likely to acquire a sponsor during TSF.

KEYWORDS:

• Social anxiety
• social phobia
• alcoholism
• alcohol dependence
• Alcoholics Anonymous
• AA Sponsor
• 12-step treatment
• gender
• women
• drinking outcome

Notes

This work was supported by grants from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (K02 AA00326 to Dr. Tonigan), (K23 AA014430 to Dr. Book), (P50 AA010761 to Dr. C. Randall), (K24 AA013314 to Dr. C. Randall), (K01 AA015137-12 to Dr. Pagano). The authors would like to thank Ms. Nancy White, and Mr. Adam G. Mace for their enthusiastic assistance with this project.