With each discovery, those who work with addicts in clinical settings remind us that these treatments don't work without enlisting the patient in a recovery process. Nevertheless, hope springs eternal that the next cure won't demand active involvement of the patient. Alcoholics' Free Will Compromised The key to understanding the behavior of alcoholics is to think of free will as an organ that, like any other organ, can be compromised. Compromised free will may lead individuals to make choices that are not in their best interest, and to resist change. There are degrees of compromise.
Some addicts have an easier time than others in being honest with themselves and accepting help.
The techniques of employee assistance counselors and interventionists, honed by clinical experience, all require some degree of willing cooperation from the alcoholic. At the same time, these techniques assume major limitations in free will requiring external incentives and consequences. Treatment is designed to leverage a small amount of healthy free will into a long-term process of healing. Significantly, the degree of compromise can be seen to clinically improve over time as the recovery process goes on. The experience of operating an abstinence-oriented, intensive, outpatient treatment program has provided insight into the phenomenology of free will.