I didn’t downvote. But AA has a mixed track record with respect to effectiveness [1]. It’s also been likened to a cult [2]. This might explain some downvoted.
That article shows that people who regularly go to AA meetings are more likely to be sober (e.g. 67% people who went to one or more meeting a week were sober 16 years later).
Because of the universal nature of AA, it is hard to randomize for it (if you just randomly tell an alcoholic to go to AA, they have already been told that by others, so that's not a very good randomization; the control is contaminated); that said, there are studies where people randomly selected to go to AA are more likely to be sober. A 2014 meta study shows that greater AA attendance results in greater sobriety, which can not be attributed to self-selection (in other words, we have finally scientifically demonstrated that the people doing well are being helped by AA):
Now, that Gabrielle Glaser article you link to which claims AA is a cult uses some very dubious figures for AA's success. They come from Lance Dodes; since Dodes could not find any studies that AA has a 5% success rate, he instead multiplied multiple numbers from unrelated studies to synthesize the 5% figure. His numbers have been questioned by a number of treatment experts, including Thomas Beresford, John Kelly, Gene Beresin, and Jeffrey D. Roth (who called Dodes's figures a "pseudostatistical polemic").
AA works fundamentally by substituting an addiction to Alcohol to one for AA - This to me has always seemed like a workable (if in the short term) way to solve the problem.
(Note that this is a paywall link. Here is a quote to give readers here a gist of that article: "acceptance of the tenets of AA may be associated with positive behavioral change"; the paper describes how working the AA program results in people having a more positive world view)
12-step meetings are not a short-term fix; I have already linked to a paper which shows that two out of three people who regularly go to AA meetings in their first year of alcohol treatment are still sober 16 years later. Here's the original paper with those figures:
While I have personally found AA to e very useful, it may not be the right solution for everyone (personally, it took me a long time until it helped).
I'd also like to add, each group is different and yes, some can be cult-like. I'd suggest trying more than one.
I'm really not trying to promote AA, just mentioning that it's one of many options (in addition to medically assistant therapy, individual and group counseling etc).
Anybody who claims to know what will work for any one person is full of it. But to anyone struggling, please keep trying different methods until you find the treatment that works for you.
The main reason that AA/NA helped me was that it brought me around sober/clean people that I could hang out with and make friends with. The step work is BS in my opinion. But the sober friends kept me alive.
That may be true. A 2018 paper shows that other non-12-step fellowships are as effective as AA (as long as the goal is abstinence from alcohol, not moderation). Since the paper is still under paywall until later this year, here's a good lay summary:
I didn’t downvote. But AA has a mixed track record with respect to effectiveness [1]. It’s also been likened to a cult [2]. This might explain some downvoted.
[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2746426/
[2] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/04/the-irr...