Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

I’M Not An Alcoholic Anymore: Getting And Staying Sober Without Twelve Step Meetings, Rachel Rayburn

Rachel L Rayburn

This project studies desistance from substance abuse and 12-step meetings. In the early 1990s, The New Orleans Homeless Substance Abusers Project (NOHSAP) was created to uncover treatment strategies for homeless substance abusers. The program ran for 3 years with 670 homeless New Orleans individuals going through treatment. This project involved finding these individuals and re-interviewing them (19 years later). The methodology for this study consists of follow-up interviews with 32 individuals in a variety of settings including at their homes and in prisons. Individuals interviewed tended to be sober, but disaffiliated with 12-step meetings.