AA and similar programs are, medically speaking, indistinguishable from telling someone “just quit” or walking into a church and asking the liturgist for guidance. It’s great that they work for some, and I’d hate to suggest anyone to give up on what works for them. But AA is historically cult-like with how they talk about their success rate and that is a major issue. One of my closest friends had a drinking problem, crappy insurance, and was referred to AA. I went as silent support to his first meeting, but the program absolutely did not take and the net result of time spent was disillusioning him from getting any help at all. He went back to the bottle and died a few years later, yet to hear AA describe it his death was because he “failed the program” and not at all because the program failed to help him. If your 12 step program helps you and gives you a chance to help others that’s a great and wonderful thing. But AA was founded by a drunk who invented a new label for “drinks too much”, and there are people who would have loved longer and healthier lives if their take was less “this is the one way for all” and more “this is one way that happened to work for us”.