Program evaluation pursues to answer how efficiently the program’s needs have been met and objectives and set standards have been attained. Program evaluation also assesses the organization’s quality, the efficiency of its methods and identifies aspects of the procedures that can be improved. For instance, Alcoholics Anonymous program evaluations were planned procedurally and implemented.
The community-based initiative, Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is a worldwide program that was formed to support individuals struggling with an alcohol drinking problem to maintain sobriety by peer support over day-to-day meetings and discussions about their addiction. The AA program was initiated by Doctor Bob Smith and Bill Wilson in 1935. Wilson published Alcoholics Anonymous, explaining the philosophy and approaches. Its idea orbits around the principle that alcoholism is a sickness that cannot be controlled, but can only be managed, and the approach outlined the twelve steps of recovery. The 12 Steps have since been adapted over the years to help persons struggling with other kinds of addiction by various institutions. Furthermore, other self-help groups such as Narcotic Anonymous have implemented the same steps to rescue many men and women from the habit.
AA through the principle of social interaction have successfully worked as members benefit a lot from the emotional and physical support as well as hands-on tips on avoiding the temptations and urge to drink. From Wilson’s philosophy, change of behavior can be achieved with some other people looking to have the same change. Moreover, with the togetherness in the fight winning against the addiction and the struggles has been giving positive results. From various studies AA approach on abstinence has been found significantly better than other measures, that is, 60% extra operative. Furthermore, no study has proved AA less efficient based on various variables such as outcomes of full abstinence and cost savings. On cost savings, another study has shown that participating in AA could significantly reduce mental health counseling costs by $10,000 per individual.
Bibliography
Kelly, John F., Keith Humphreys, and Marica Ferri. “Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12‐step programs for alcohol use disorder.” Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 3 (2020).