It seems to have worked for my dad, he's got 17 years. Some people need to go to a meeting when they see people having fun drinking beer. I used to think it was just a cult but I see it now for what it is. It's a place for alcoholics to go and try to make it through a night they would otherwise spend drinking, with out a drink. I can see why it seems cultish to people who don't have so much inner turmoil over abstaining from alcohol. That's why I don't consider alcohol dependance genetic, maybe a predisposition to deal with stress with substances, but it still requires that a pattern be set into place where alcohol is chosen over cannabis, which in most cases is one's job. For those of us who can put down the bottle and not fiend for it, it may be difficult to understand the mind set of someone who seeks god to give them strength to not drink. However, I think it is another addiction altogether to seek god for strength. They try to fill the hole in their heart with god instead of alcohol. Talking about the things that would drive you to seek numbness by drinking certainly helps healing better than drinking.
Telling someone they have to surrender to a higher power is in my opinion asking too much for some people including myself. I haven't had a drink in over a year anyway.
THE TWELVE STEPS OF ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS
1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become
unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to
sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we
understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature
of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make
amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do
so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly
admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with
God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us
and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to
carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our
affairs.
