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One other key approximation: the interpretation of the decline from the
corrected percentage of 9-year people to the corrected percentage of
10-year people (say) as a survival rate depends also on the observation
that the distribution in sobriety in the survey samples has shown
reasonable similarity from 1968 forward; that is to say, there is a kind
of constancy in operation here.  Figure 2 illustrates this.

     Survey Year      Sober < 1     Sober 1-5      Sober 5+
         1977           37.3           38.0          24.7
         1980           36.4           37.2          26.4
         1983           37.7           36.9          24.9
         1986           32.8           38.4          29.0
         1989           34.6           36.4          28.9


Figure 2

The second, much less drastic, correction is to apply the frequency of
attendance at meetings, as discussed in Appendix D (the section on
attendance rates.)   The frequency of those sober less than a year is
about 10% greater than that of members with 5 years and more, so that they
are somewhat overrepresented.

Applying these two corrections to the raw data gives the corrected data of
Figure 1, or in summary:

(1)  About 41% of those sober less than a year will remain sober and
     active in the Fellowship another year.

(2)  About 83% of those sober less than five years will remain sober and
     active in the Fellowship another year.

(3)  About 91% of those sober five years or more will remain sober and
     active in the Fellowship another year.

The calculations described has been repeated for surveys from 1974
forward and have always given results within a few percent of these
values.  Because of the approximation involved, we have generally cited
40%, 80% and 90% as the three numbers in question.

There seems to be no acceptable way to follow up individuals who leave
the Fellowship to determine the reasons, although we are all familiar with
many examples of members with many years of sobriety who no longer attend
meetings.   Therefore, it is important to re-emphasize that the survival
rates refer to members still active in the Fellowship, and the numbers,
particularly for significant lengths of sobriety, are lower limits to the
percentages of those remaining sober in or out of the Fellowship; that is,
they are less than what might be called "success rates."

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