There have been two periods of my life in which I engaged I heavy drink. To fix this, I quit. According to Alcoholics Anonymous, this should have been impossible on my own. I had not considered myself diseased, did not call on a higher power, and did not commit to a series of steps to reach the goal. I just dried out, which is something I have in common with many others.

Approaches, be they AA’s 12-step process, something similar, or something quite different, might work for some participants but not for all. And there is little to suggest the AA approach is likely to be successful. AA claims a 40 percent success rate, making it no better than an iffy proposition. But this number applies only to those currently in the program and therefore fails to account for those who have quit (the program, not the drinking). This one size fits all approach is a problem since people over imbibe for various reasons, have varying levels of physical or psychological addiction to alcohol, and have different personalities. Few are the out of control wayward derelicts in need of redemption that AA portrays all heavy drinkers as. When it seems to work, it is more a reflection on the patient than the program.

Forceful interventions are commonly used to spring the program on someone, by relatives or friends. A small army, perhaps including an AA representative, confront the subject who immediately goes on the defensive. While this would a normal reaction, it is treated as a form of denial by those intervening.

If treatment commences, the subject is told alcohol abuse is a disease caused by their being weak-willed. Hence, moderate or even light drinking must be permanently out since the feckless patient is hopeless with any path other than permanent abstinence. Even those who agree with this are kept forever stained by one of the organization’s most well-known mantras, “Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic.” Because this is not really a disease, it can’t be treated by physicians or medicine. In reality, it is treated as a broken person’s immutable condition. This keeps them forever in need of AA.

It is telling that it has been defined as a disease by the same outfit that claims to have the exclusive cure – though that is something of a misnomer, since the overarching point is that one can never be fully fixed. Being cured would mean an end to treatment and its accompanying payments.

AA has no grounding in science or medicine. It relies wholly on anecdotes, in the form of, “My name is blank and I’m an alcoholic.” Rousing success stories are highlighted but, as James Randi explained, the plural of anecdote is not data.