Moderation Management (MM) is a

secular Secularity, also the secular or secularness (from Latin ''saeculum'', "worldly" or "of a generation"), is the state of being unrelated or neutral in regards to religion. Anything that does not have an explicit reference to religion, either negativ ...

non-profit A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

organization providing peer-run

support group In a support group, members provide each other with various types of help, usually nonprofessional and nonmaterial, for a particular shared, usually burdensome, characteristic. Members with the same issues can come together for sharing coping str ...

s for anyone who would like to reduce their

alcohol consumption An alcoholic beverage (also called an alcoholic drink, adult beverage, or a drink) is a drink that contains ethanol, a type of alcohol that acts as a drug and is produced by fermentation of grains, fruits, or other sources of sugar. The cons ...

. MM was founded in 1994 to create an alternative to

Alcoholics Anonymous Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is an international mutual aid fellowship of alcoholics dedicated to abstinence-based recovery from alcoholism through its spiritually-inclined Twelve Step program. Following its Twelve Traditions, AA is non-professi ...

and similar

addiction recovery groups Drug addiction recovery groups are voluntary associations of people who share a common desire to overcome their drug addiction. Different groups use different methods, ranging from completely secular to explicitly spiritual. Some programs may advoca ...

for non-dependent problem drinkers who do not necessarily want to stop drinking, but moderate their amount of alcohol consumed to reduce its detrimental consequences.

Methodology

Moderation Management allows members to set their own drinking goals as they feel appropriate. MM encourages members to follow particular drinking guidelines, limits, goal setting techniques, and a nine-step cognitive-behavioral change program. The MM limits and guidelines were derived from the work of Dr. Martha Sanchez-Craig. MM members are encouraged, but do not need to follow, the suggested guidelines, limits and steps. MM does not view non-dependent problem drinkers as

alcoholics Alcoholism is, broadly, any drinking of alcohol that results in significant mental or physical health problems. Because there is disagreement on the definition of the word ''alcoholism'', it is not a recognized diagnostic entity. Predomina ...

, but rather people with a bad, but controllable,

habit A habit (or wont as a humorous and formal term) is a routine of behavior that is repeated regularly and tends to occur subconsciously.

. MM does not state that

surrender Surrender may refer to: * Surrender (law), the early relinquishment of a tenancy * Surrender (military), the relinquishment of territory, combatants, facilities, or armaments to another power Film and television * ''Surrender'' (1927 film), an ...

spirituality The meaning of ''spirituality'' has developed and expanded over time, and various meanings can be found alongside each other. Traditionally, spirituality referred to a religious process of re-formation which "aims to recover the original shape o ...

is needed to end or control the habit. MM literature makes a similar distinction to Alcoholics Anonymous literature that there are problem drinkers who can return to controlled drinking and alcoholics who can not. MM groups are intended to give members a chance to identify with other problem drinkers and learn from the successes and failures of each other. Face-to-face meetings last about an hour, whereas online meetings are ongoing. "Crosstalk," members interrupting each other to provide feedback during meetings, is allowed.

Mental health professional A mental health professional is a health care practitioner or social and human services provider who offers services for the purpose of improving an individual's mental health or to treat mental disorders. This broad category was developed as a ...

s are allowed to help start MM meetings, but ultimate control must be left to the participants. A

content analysis Content analysis is the study of documents and communication artifacts, which might be texts of various formats, pictures, audio or video. Social scientists use content analysis to examine patterns in communication in a replicable and systematic ...

of online MM meetings found the most common types of communication by members were

self-disclosure Self-disclosure is a process of communication by which one person reveals information about themselves to another. The information can be descriptive or evaluative, and can include thoughts, feelings, aspirations, goals, failures, successes, fears, ...

, provision of information and advice, and provision of emotional support. Similar studies of depression and eating disorder support groups have found the same patterns.

Membership

In a 2001 survey of Moderation Management, most MM members are

white White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White on ...

(96%), employed (81%), educated (72% have at least a college education) and on average are more secular than the rest of the population (32% identify as

atheists Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no d ...

agnostics Agnosticism is the view or belief that the existence of God, of the divine or the supernatural is unknown or unknowable. (page 56 in 1967 edition) Another definition provided is the view that "human reason is incapable of providing sufficient ...

, only 16% regularly attend religious services). MM attracts an equal number of men and women (49% are female); depending on the kinds of meetings attended, between 11.9% and 33.8% of members were under 35 years of age. MM members mostly describe themselves as being non-dependent problem drinkers. In general, MM members report having a mild history of substance-abuse problems before joining, with 40% having consumed four or fewer drinks per drinking day and less than 10% experienced serious withdrawal symptoms or comorbid drug abuse.

Alcohol consumption of members

The 2001 survey saw that 87.1% of online-only members (members whose participation in Moderation Management was online only) and 61.7% of face-to-face members (people who went only to real-world face-to-face meetings) drank four or more days a week. 70.6% of online-only and 49.1% of face-to-face-only members had five or more drinks on days they drank. Among members who went to both face-to-face and online meetings, 85.4% drank four or more days a week, and 53.8% had five or more drinks on drinking days.

Effectiveness

A 2009 study saw that subjects using just Moderation Management to reduce their drinking went from having only about one day a week abstinent from alcohol to having 1.5 days a week abstinent (e.g. they would drink six days one week and five days another week). A 2012 paper argues that, while there is little scientific analysis of MM's efficacy, mutual support groups such as ''Moderation Management'' could be effective.

History

Moderation Management was founded by Audrey Kishline, a problem drinker, who did not identify with the

disease theory of alcoholism The modern disease theory of alcoholism states that problem drinking is sometimes caused by a disease of the brain, characterized by altered brain structure and function. The largest association of physicians – the American Medical Associatio ...

finding that it eroded her

self-confidence Confidence is a state of being clear-headed either that a hypothesis or prediction is correct or that a chosen course of action is the best or most effective. Confidence comes from a Latin word 'fidere' which means "to trust"; therefore, having ...

. Kishline found that she could moderate her drinking with the help of

cognitive behavioral therapy Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a psycho-social intervention that aims to reduce symptoms of various mental health conditions, primarily depression and anxiety disorders. CBT focuses on challenging and changing cognitive distortions (suc ...

principles and in 1994 created Moderation Management as an organization for non-dependent problem drinkers to help maintain moderate alcohol use. MM maintains, however, that it is not for all problem drinkers; that there are some drinkers for whom abstinence will be the only solution. Kishline had asked many

professionals A professional is a member of a profession or any person who works in a specified professional activity. The term also describes the standards of education and training that prepare members of the profession with the particular knowledge and skil ...

for advice while she was establishing the fellowship, including psychologist

Jeffrey Schaler Jeffrey Alfred Schaler is a psychologist, author, editor, retired professor of justice, law, and society at American University, and former member of the psychology faculty at Johns Hopkins University. He is a prominent critic of psychiatric claims ...

, who wrote the foreword for the first edition of the book, ''Moderate Drinking,'' used in the organization and served on the original board of

trustee Trustee (or the holding of a trusteeship) is a legal term which, in its broadest sense, is a synonym for anyone in a position of trust and so can refer to any individual who holds property, authority, or a position of trust or responsibility to t ...

s for MM. Schaler split ways with MM over two issues. The first being failure of MM's leadership to condemn member Larry Froistad after he confessed to murdering his daughter on an MM support group

email list A mailing list is a collection of names and addresses used by an individual or an organization to send material to multiple recipients. The term is often extended to include the people subscribed to such a list, so the group of subscribers is re ...

. The second being a disagreement with MM as to whether there was a medical distinction between problem drinkers and

. Schaler's foreword was replaced with one by historian Ernest Kurtz in subsequent editions. In January 2000 Kishline posted a message to an official MM

stating that she had concluded her best drinking goal was abstinence and that she would begin attending

SMART Recovery SMART Recovery is an international non-profit organization that provides assistance to individuals seeking abstinence from addiction. SMART stands for Self-Management and Recovery Training. The SMART approach is secular and research-based, usin ...

and

Women for Sobriety Women for Sobriety (WFS) is a non-profit secular addiction recovery group for women with addiction problems. WFS was created by sociologist Jean Kirkpatrick in 1976 as an alternative to twelve-step addiction recovery groups like Alcoholics Anon ...

meetings while continuing to support MM for others. In March 2000, while drunk, she drove her truck the wrong way down a highway, and hit another vehicle head-on killing its two passengers (a father and his twelve-year-old daughter). MM continued to grow during Kishline's time in prison. She was released in August 2003 after serving 3½ years of her 4½ year sentence. Kishline continued to drink once released from prison. Soon after she divorced from her husband and struggled to find work in part due to her felony conviction. She developed a friendship with the wife and mother of the victims of her drunk driving accident, and they authored a book together on their relationship. She died of suicide at the age of 59 on December 19, 2014.

Literature

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References

{{Reflist, 2

External links

Moderation Management
Harm reduction Addiction organizations in the United States Organizations established in 1994 Support groups