AA challenged by MM

Amy Girvan, Guardian -  Upstairs from one of my favorite Oakland dive bars, 10 people of varying ages and backgrounds are sitting in a circle, talking about their drinking problem.

“I make plans for my non-drinking days so that I’m not thinking about it so much – I work out, I schedule late work meetings, so it’s not even a temptation,” a tall, thin older woman says. Later, she explains that there was a time not long ago when the idea of getting through any day without five or six drinks seemed impossible to her.

“Go out later, hold off on that first drink, set up a game for yourself like ‘I can only buy one drink and then I have to get any others I want bought for me’,” adds a young man in stubble and a newsboy cap. “Hold off on your second drink, too,” adds the older man sitting next to him. “I used to order my next drink halfway through my first, so I’d be halfway through my second before the effects of the first one would kick in and then forget about it.”

This is Moderation Management, a program whose rising popularity and success rate is posing the first real challenge in decades to the traditional, black and white approach to addiction.

The program typically starts with 30 days off booze altogether – “doing a 30” in MM parlance – followed by a slow reintroduction of alcohol, and eventually a plan to limit your intake: no more than 14 drinks a week for men, nine a week for women, and no drinking more than three or four days a week for either. There’s increasing talk of applying MM to marijuana use as well, although that’s not officially condoned by the nonprofit of the same name, which administers the program.

“People do come in lately who want help moderating marijuana and because it’s still illegal in California, we shy away from it,” explains Marc Kern, the organization’s director. “That doesn’t mean they can’t come to meetings and listen and stuff like that. But in states that have legalized it, I can see a time where there’s a different MM – Marijuana Moderation.”

Three out of the 10 people at the meeting I attended said they weren’t ready to do a 30 yet, but were planning shorter breaks. One man celebrated the fact that he’d taken one day off from smoking weed and drinking. He does both in moderation daily, and his concern was more about the frequency and the fact that he can never seem to take a day off than the amount of any particular substance consumed.