Changes in alcohol‐related social network composition mediate the effects of AA meeting attendance on drinking following a recovery attempt in adults with alcohol use disorder
Bibliographic record
Abstract
AIMS: To assess whether changes in social network drinking is a mechanism of behaviour change responsible for the benefits of attending Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) during a recovery attempt. DESIGN: An observational longitudinal cohort study investigating mechanisms of behaviour change among adults with alcohol use disorder (AUD) reporting initiation of a substantial recovery attempt. SETTING: Boston, Massachusetts, United States, and Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. PARTICIPANTS: From a larger observational cohort, participants were individuals who reported a substantive increase in AA attendance (increase of ≥1 + meetings/week) from baseline to 6 weeks (n = 71) and a propensity score-matched control group of participants who did not increase AA attendance (n = 71). Propensity score matching used demographics and baseline drinking. MEASUREMENTS: Baseline assessment and a 6-week follow-up assessment, including outcome variables: diagnostic assessment of AUD, timeline followback interview [percent drinking days (%DD) and percent heavy drinking days (%HDD)]; and exposure variables: formal egocentric social network assessment collecting egocentric social network metrics and using up to 20 network alters. FINDINGS: Compared with the control group, participants who increased AA participation statistically significantly reduced %DD [mean (M) = 5.67% (standard error of the mean, SEM = 1.81) vs 30.91% (3.59); F = 46.22, P < 0.001] and %HDD [5.21% (1.79) vs 23.32% (3.14); F = 28.34, P < 0.001] and exhibited statistically significantly improved social network indicators including reduced network drinking frequency [1.99 (0.08) vs 2.96 (0.09); F = 42.26, P < 0.001] and severity [1.68 (0.06) vs 2.34 (0.08); F = 40.51, P < 0.001]. Changes in social network drinking statistically significantly mediated the relationship between changes in AA attendance and reductions in %DD [b = -0.06 (0.02), P = 0.01] and %HDD [b = -0.05 (0.02), P = 0.04] at follow-up. CONCLUSIONS: Reduced social network drinking appears to be one mechanism of behaviour change associated with the positive effects of Alcoholics Anonymous on drinking behavior during recovery.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.005 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".