Originally Posted by
redietz
I argued many of these points previously. Defining "addiction" is key here, and I'm not going to touch that monster. I'll stick to evaluation of profit/loss. To put it simply, given the current state of video poker, and evaluating ALL video poker players, would everyone adopting the "Singer system" reduce the casinos' bottom line? Second question, would all non-advantage-players' adopting of the "Singer system" reduce the casinos' bottom line? Now I think arcimedes feels it would not. I strongly feel it would.
These are fascinating topics and worth exploring.
By the way, all of the AA, GA, and so on methodologies appear, in macro-studies as of 10 years ago, to have the same or less efficacy as simply having friends or any social group who wants you to "get well."
What Frank says is correct regarding the truth not "working." However, let's define "working" before going further. For most of these so-called treatment options, the efficacy is very, very low. It's better than doing nothing, but not better than having your social group supporting you as you attempt to clean up your act. So while the "truth" doesn't work, the other stuff really doesn't work much better, although you'll have a tough time getting the psychological industry to publicly admit that. You will get the occasional journal macro-study that basically exposes the emperor as having no clothes, but these are increasingly difficult to get published. It's hard, after all, to get funded (and tenure) demonstrating that your departmental specialty doesn't really work.