Moderation Management - History

History

Moderation Management was founded by Audrey Kishline, a problem drinker, who did not identify with the disease theory of alcoholism (as presented in Alcoholics Anonymous and other addiction recovery twelve-step programs) finding that it eroded her self-confidence. Kishline never experienced withdrawal symptoms and was able to hold a job and stay in school while drinking. Kishline found that she could moderate her drinking with the help of cognitive-behavioral therapy principles and in 1994 founded 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.

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. Having never ceased her excessive drinking, while attending Moderation Management, 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. She was released in August 2003 after serving 3½ years of her 4½ year sentence.

Kishline had asked many professionals for advice while she was establishing the fellowship, including psychologist Jeffrey A. Schaler, who had written the foreword for the first edition of the book, Moderate Drinking, used in the organization and served on the original board of trustees for MM. Schaler and MM split ways over whether or not there was a medical distinction between problem drinkers and alcoholics, the latter having a disease and the former having a habit, and over the MM's failure to condemn Larry Froistad following his murder confession. Schaler's foreword was replaced with one by Historian Ernest Kurtz in subsequent editions.