Moderation Management (Alcohol Support Group)

[ocean]

Moderation Management

What is MM?
Moderation Management (MM) is a free behavioral change program and national support group network for people concerned about their drinking and who desire to make positive lifestyle changes. MM empowers individuals to accept personal responsibility for choosing and maintaining their own path, whether moderation or abstinence. MM promotes early self-recognition of risky drinking behavior, when moderate drinking is a more easily achievable goal.
It is a secular non-profit organization providing peer-run support groups for anyone who would like to reduce their alcohol consumption or achieve 'controlled drinking'. MM was founded in 1994 to create an alternative to Alcoholics Anonymous and similar addiction recovery groups 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:

MM 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.

Nine Steps Toward Moderation and Positive Lifestyle Changes:

1. Attend meetings or on-line groups and learn about the program of Moderation Management.
2. Abstain from alcoholic beverages for 30 days and complete steps three through six during this time.
3. Examine how drinking has affected your life.
4. Write down your life priorities.
5. Take a look at how much, how often, and under what circumstances you had been drinking.
6. Learn the MM guidelines and limits for moderate drinking.
7. Set moderate drinking limits and start weekly "small steps" toward balance and moderation in other areas of your life.
8. Review your progress and update your goals.
9. Continue to make positive lifestyle changes and attend meetings whenever you need ongoing support or would like to help newcomers.

What to expect from a MM meeting?

MM groups give members a chance to identify with other problem drinkers and learn from the successes and failures of each other.
Mutual support and encouragement is provided.
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 professionals are allowed to help start MM meetings, but ultimate control must be left to the participants.
A content analysis of online MM meetings found the most common types of communication by members were self-disclosure, provision of information and advice, and provision of emotional support. Similar studies of depression and eating disorder support groups have found the same patterns.

How to find a meeting:
Moderation Management face to face meeting directory
Online Support


Moderation Management's View on what classifies a Moderate Drinker:

• Considers an occasional drink to be a small, though enjoyable, part of life.
• Has hobbies, interests, and other ways to relax and enjoy life that do not include alcohol.
• Usually has friends who are moderate drinkers or nondrinkers.
• Generally has something to eat before, during, or soon after drinking.
• Usually does not drink for longer than an hour or two on any particular occasion.
• Usually does not drink faster than one drink per half-hour.
• Usually does not exceed the .055% BAC moderate drinking limit.
• Feels comfortable with his or her use of alcohol (never drinks secretly and does not spend a lot of time thinking about drinking or planning to drink).

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What if moderation does not work for you?

After completing 30 days of abstinence (step two of the MM program) and then starting the moderation part of the program, you may discover that it is more difficult for you to moderate your drinking than to abstain. In this case, consider a self-management goal of abstinence. Some members of MM who choose abstinence remain in our program; others find an abstinence-only group to attend.

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*Disclaimer for all Support Group threads- We are NOT promoting any one over another, only offering information for discussion and easy access support

 

[Mehm]

Maybe a little more history to go with this program...

In January 2000 Kishline posted a message to an official MM email list stating that she had concluded her best drinking goal was abstinence and that she would begin attending Alcoholics Anonymous, SMART Recovery and Women For Sobriety meetings while continuing to support MM for others.[2] Having never ceased her excessive drinking, while attending Moderation Management,[2] in March 2000 she drove her truck the wrong way down a highway, and hit another vehicle head-on killing its two passengers (a father and his 12 year old daughter). MM continued to grow during Kishline's time in prison.[1] She was released in August 2003 after serving 3½ years of her 4½ year sentence.[3][page needed][neutrality is disputed]

 

[Swimmingdancer]

^I agree with the "neutrality disputed" tag. Moderation Management doesn't work for everyone all of the time, neither does Alcoholics Anonymous or any other group/program. Here's a different viewpoint on the topic:

Many AAs are quick to jump on the bandwagon, and use this tragedy as reason why AA’s method of complete abstinence is a better approach. Google the name, and you will find plenty of comments from AA forums and blogs stating why Audrey would have been better off stepping, and not moderating.
. . .
The problem with what [these people are] saying is, Audrey Kishline was actually in AA, not Moderation Management, at the time she killed those two people. She had actually left Moderation Management a few months earlier, and had begun attending Alcoholics Anonymous. She wrote this email upon her departure:

Spoiler: Kishline's letter

"Hello Everyone, fellow MMers,

I have made the decision recently to change my recovery goal to one of abstinence, rather than moderation.

As you all know, Moderation Management is a program for beginning stage problem drinkers who want to cut back OR quit drinking.

MM provides moderate-drinking limits based on research, and a fellowship of members who work the program’s steps together. Some of our members have been able to stay within healthy limits, some have not. Those who acknowledge they cannot stay within moderate guidelines have always been encouraged to move on to an abstinence-based program.

I am now following a different path, and to strengthen my sobriety I am attending Alcoholics Anonymous, but will also attend Women for Sobriety and SMART Recovery. I am sure I can learn much from all of these fine programs.

Initial results from a National Institutes of Health funded study on MM out of Stanford University show that indeed members of MM are highly educated, have jobs, families, and most of their resources are in tact. It is also very unlikely that they would define themselves as “alcoholic” and in fact shun any program that would label them as such. But they are concerned about their drinking. They are attracted to MM because they know they will be allowed to take responsibility for making their own choice of recovery goals.

For many, including myself, MM is a gateway to abstinence. Seven years Ago I would not have accepted abstinence. Today, because of MM, I do. Whether abusive drinking is a disease or a learned behavior does not matter. If you drink too much and this is causing problems in your life, you need to do something about it. We’re intelligent people, but sometimes we need to quit debating in our heads, and look at what’s in our hearts.

If you, like myself, find eventually that you cannot stay within our guidelines there is no shame in admitting this. In fact it is a success.

A big success, because you have found through our program what you need to do to really live life to its fullest. As Dr. Ernest Kurtz, one of the foremost experts on AA who wrote the forward to our handbook, once predicted “MM will one day refer more people to AA than any other program.”

He may be right!

My heartfelt best wishes to each and every one of you as you discover Your own recovery goal."

This is when she started attending AA. Obviously, AA failed her, just as her very own program failed her. It is interesting that the same people who quickly jump on the bandwagon to point the finger at MM, and in advocacy of AA – and hold this tragedy up as an example as to why – are not so quick to point the same finger at themselves upon learning that it was, in fact, an AA who caused this accident.
[source]

Different programs and techniques work for different people. Everyone's situation is so different and I think we should make unbiased info about many different approaches available so people can decide what is right for them or what they'd like to try. MM themselves say it doesn't work for everyone and if you find yourself not being able to drink in moderation and wanting to try abstinence you can practice abstinence through the MM program or move onto an abstinence-based program. Some people are not willing or ready for abstinence (and it may not be necessary for some) or abstinence-only programs and to me MM sounds like a good thing to try for those kinds of people.