Canadian Political Events

Great. So we are at the point where we agree there is a trade off. It would be challenging to actually quantify the actual effects of both factors. I am not convinced it is as small as you suggested given my experience with the addicts. They are masters at rationalization and justification. That said, my main concern is misdirection of resources because everyone is obsessing about SIS when detox beds are more important when it comes to getting people off drugs sooner.

And one avenue to a detox bed is via a SIS.

Addicts have specific behaviors and enabling and addict is known to prolong an addiction. This is an accepted fact among addiction professionals.

Here is what the Betty Ford clinic has to say about enabling:

Enabling behavior:

• Protects the addict from the natural consequences of his behavior
• Keeps secrets about the addict's behavior from others in order to keep peace
• Makes excuses for the addict's behavior (with teachers, friends, legal authorities, employers, and other family members)
• Bails the addict out of trouble (pays debts, fixes tickets, hires lawyers, and provides jobs)
• Blames others for the addicted person's behaviors (friends, teachers, employers, family, and self)
• Sees "the problem" as the result of something else (shyness, adolescence, loneliness, broken home, ADHD, or another illness)
• Avoids the addict in order to keep peace (out of sight, out of mind)
• Gives money that is undeserved or unearned
• Attempts to control that which is not within the enabler's ability to control (plans activities, chooses friends, and gets jobs)
• Makes threats that have no follow-through or consistency
• "Care takes" the addicted person by doing what she is expected to do for herself

Only the first of those enabling behaviors could partially be considered to come from SISs, in so far as we are protecting he addict from AIDs and/or death. I think that is a worthwhile compromise.

Remember it is mainly a Christian program with little research behind it.

1) People figured stuff out by trial and error for the the last 6000 years. Formal research is not a requirement for knowledge to be correct.
2) It is not Christian. It is spiritual. There is a huge difference. The AA literature has specific suggestions for how an atheist can adopt the program to help them.

here are other addiction programs with higher success rate.

And how many of those are free and available to anyone with a desire to access at any time? The ones I have seen are expensive and their claims are likely biased by the desire to attract customers.

In any case, AA/NA gets more people clean and sober simply because more people have access to the program so a lower success rate (even if it is true) still means a larger number of people are helped. That is good for addicts and good for society.

The real competition however is not solving the addiction but at least keeping people alive and relatively healthy and minimizing the impact on others;

Addicts have specific behaviors and enabling and addict is known to prolong an addiction. This is an accepted fact among addiction professionals.

I never said it was the entire solution. I was only responding to your earlier dismissal of the program. It has its place and many of the philosophies are based on decades of a experience dealing with addicts. This experience should not be dismissed.
Compared to what exactly? All addiction treatment programs have very high relapse rates. Moreover, including the 40% of the people who show up and make no effort is like judging a medication based on the number of people that refuse to take it.

So you do understand that relapse rates are high no matter where counselling is made available. But you seem to ignore that SIS's do save lives as well as serious infections from needles. Why is that?

AA/NA is the most widespread addiction treatment program largely because it is free and ubiquitous. It has lasted 80+ years and if it did not help people it would not exist.

Yes, AA does some good work, but it is far from a solution.

40% of people drop out after a few meetings
27% remain sober for a year
24% remain sober for 1-5 years
13% remain sober for 5-10 years

I have not seen good statistics on success for narcotics, but I would expect them to be much lower.