Interesting. I was never a fan of AA and I was very critical in the lack of science and rigor in addiction treatment, and actually for mental health in general. I always felt there were better treatments, but CBT-based group therapy / 12-step alternatives are pretty rare. All you really need to start a chapter of AA is to not have one nearby and a place to host it. It's comforting that AA at least doesn't make things worse, on average, even if its not amazing. I'm still not comfortable with the fact that the government will require people to attend what is essentially a religious service as criminal punishment, and there are certain aspects of AA that they should probably at least de-emphasize.
"I'm still not comfortable with the fact that the government will require people to attend what is essentially a religious service as criminal punishment"
Maybe there's some kind of slippery slope there, where they eventually start sending you to church for a parking ticket. But we don't seem to be sliding to that conclusion very quickly; so if it works, just go with it.
If you want to make a big federal case out of it, you could probably win it. But I honestly don't see how anyone wins with that outcome.
A few homeless shelters are "open", even when they don't have beds. They require mandated participation in multiple religious activities per day.
Boise statutes say "If a homeless shelter is open, you can be arrested and jailed for sleeping on the streets", and "but I don't want to be subjected to mandatory religious activities for only the _potential_ of a bed at the end of the day" is not considered an excuse.
It's one thing to criticize religious impositions on a secular activity (like addiction recovery). What you have just done is criticize religious people as a group, and claim that they are abusive.
Criticize ideas and policies; not groups of people.
The OP is saying a lot more than "AA at least doesn't make things worse". It's making much stronger claims about what the evidence now shows, for example that AA is not only more effective than CBT, but requires half as much time (let alone money). They're saying that a new wave of stronger, randomized studies has completely overturned the previous weak consensus.
