Positive Emotions and the Success of Alcoholics Anonymous

Abstract

Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) works because it discovered the use of positive emotions as a therapeutic tool 50 years before academic psychology discovered positive psychology. First, AA's emphasis on admitting dependence on and attachment to others, leads to the positive emotion of love and second, the recognition that to keep it you have to give it away, leading to the positive emotion of joy. The first three Steps of AA involve turning oneself over to a trusted other as long as it is not “me” (AA has always been clear that the definition of “God” was the alcoholic's choice) is to allow oneself to feel loved. The second component of AA is guiding new members toward joy via the last two Steps of AA. The 12th step, of course, is “As the result of these Steps: we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles (positive emotions) in all our affairs.” Secure attachment (a.k.a. love), as extrapolated from brain-imaging studies of mother–child attachment, is like addiction associated with reduction in amygdala firing and increases in nucleus accumbens activity. Imaging researchers have found that the joy of giving to your favorite charity, like taking cocaine, stimulates the nucleus accumbens. In short, like methadone in opiate addiction, the positive emotions induced by AA provide a safe, nonpharmacological substitute for alcohol.

KEYWORDS:

• Alcoholics Anonymous
• The Twelve Steps
• positive emotion
• limbic system
• joy
• relapse prevention