It is also noteworthy that the most predictive of the AA variables was from the posttreatment time point, which corresponds to the highest rate of AA participation (i.e., any attendance at AA; see Figure 4C). NS in particular resulted in more AA attendance, but the number of patients attending AA declined as time went on. Nevertheless, the effects of NS persisted beyond that. One of those effects appears to have been continued association with new, non-drinking friends, some of whom apparently were associated with AA meetings (see Figure 6). Thus both posttreatment AA attendance and number of friends partly mediated the effect of NS treatment on PDA, particularly on the posttreatment level of PDA.
