[RookyNumbas]

I'm positive you can find many therapies and other methods that end up working better than AA.

I went through some of those methods and they are very effective. It also cost me around $10k, and that's after very good insurance.

Many (most?) alcoholics are not in a position where they can spend 10k on treatment. So it's really a moot comparison. Further confounding many of the studies is that AA is filled with people who are there by court order or other reasons. It's not at all a fair comparison. In most of these studies, someone who slips up and has a single drink after 2 years of sobriety is bucketed in with someone who only has a week of sobriety total.

I've actually talked to my addictions therapist about this, and is his opinion, every single study done surrounding AA has been absolute garbage.