If you really have had as much experience with hardcore drunks as you seem to imply, I'd think you would know better.

There are people here who know exactly who I am and what my history is, and that alcoholism has galloped in my family. And killed two members (a brother indirectly when he passed out at such a high blood alcohol level with a cigarette burning, he never came to to realize he was on fire). You AA dogmatists just kill me, with your arrogant certitude that anyone who criticizes the program that works for you is so supremely holy and beyond legitimate criticism. Yes, there is a line in the BB stating they do not claim to be the only way -- but get into the program and that is simply NOT the theme. And, AA has a near monopoly on the multi-billion dollar tx industry.

I have a very close friend (a social democrat), sober for nearly 30 years, who was almost killed by AA. She despises that program and would never go back. (It was the 4th Step process and her "sponsor's" approach to it -- laypeople playing psychologist -- that drove her to suicidal ideation and a psych ward.)

As I wrote earlier, every court I am aware of has found AA to be religious and steeped in a distinct theology. Which it is. Steppers develop their own terminology and in-group attitudes and terms, and pervasively regard anyone sober outside of their program as "dry drunks." The arrogance can be astounding.

If it works for you and others, terrific. Sincerely. But it has its drawbacks and is not the Great Holy Path to Recovery that its many acolytes would want to depict it as, at least not for everyone. Preaching otherwise can kill people, too. And btw, plenty of libertarians like and thrive in AA. And plenty of non-libertarians are critical of it. My political philosophy is not at the core of my objections.

Be that as it may, I don't see the problem with AA if alcoholics and their families think it helps them.

I agree with that completely, as far as it goes. But you have no idea how many horror stories and awful experiences there have been for some who tried AA. Many 12-Steppers are every bit as dogmatic as Falwell or Dobson. They aren't interested just in getting one to stay sober, but rather the "right kind of sober." And that carries a whole theological package of what that "right kind" is that is wrong for a great many people.

Ultimately, I do not actually blame AA. I blame the tx industry which incorporated and appropriated the 12 Step model as the One True Way. To its credit, AA won't get involved in that controversy because it strongly resists any involvement in controversial/political issues. It, as an organization, did not ask to become co-opted by the tx industry. But that having happened, competing models for dealing with alcoholism have been all but marginalized into non-existence. That is a bad thing for those for whom the AA approach simply does not work.

AA is wholly premised on a belief in a Higher Power who intervenes directly in one's life, as well as confession rituals. Telling an atheist the HP can be an effing doorknob, a lamppost, the AA group etc. requires them to suspend their intelligence. How about directing them to a cognitive behavioral approach that might better suit their tendency to see the world in rational, non-supernatural terms? But because almost the whole rehab industry is swamped with 12 Steppers, that sort of option is seldom considered or offered. And it does kill people that that is so.