[theatlantic.com]

FWIW, One of my relatives is an AA member who has been sober for over thirty years. I know another who relapsed after about 26 years. I have a young relative dealing with addiction. She has been in inpatient and outpatient programs and has attended AA some. She hasn't really been able to figure out what works for her. Through my sober relative, I know that many, many relapse with AA and it is always a process. My guess is that whatever program one uses, how faith factors in has more to do with the individual's perspective on faith. People uncomfortable with the higher power thing in AA can and do just chalk it up to acknowledging that there are things beyond their control. My sober relative disapproves of secular programs, but his reasons really have nothing to do with the effectiveness or lack of AA.

Here are a few articles:

[psmag.com]
[ncbi.nlm.nih.gov]
[journalofethics.ama-assn.org]

Personally, I've been to a couple of AA meetings and was immediately repulsed. I can acknowledge that some people find solace there. But they might as well be in a prayer meeting. An alternative that I strongly recommend is SMART Recovery (https://www.smartrecovery.org/). "SMART" stands for "Self-Management and Recovery Training". It is a science-based program whose techniques are research based and published in reputable medical journals.

There is info out of there admittedly it was ten years ago I found out that aa was 43% effective whilst no help at all is 53% effective .

There is little evidence that AA and the 12 step program produce consistent positive results.

The 12 steps (faith based) method is just about as effective as quitting with no “treatment.”
Today it’s known that childhood trauma is a major underlying factor in addiction. Any “treatment” that fails to address the trauma is likely to fail, or simply substitute another addiction (like committing your whole life to the 12-step program.)
I knew a teenage girl who was getting “counseling” from the Catholic services center for anorexia. After talking with her, it was clear that her anorexia was a symptom of her Catholic guilt. The counseling she was getting was only reinforcing the source of her problem.

Big topic. My daughter was a heroin addict. And honestly we threw so much money at treatment and it really had mixed results. I think it depends on what the addiction is. But I strongly believe that whatever keeps you sober is what you need to do. That could be medication, therapy, or god. I can't say that faith based rehab works any better than any others. And for heroin it is almost always medically assited treatment that works. Meaning methadone, suboxone, vivitrol etc.

i've had problems with alcohol for many decades but never believed in AAs b/c of the religion.
i'm sure there are many in my position.

I have friends involved with Smart Recovery, they tell me it has much better results than AA or any Step type programs.

I found this. Hope it helps.

[digitalcommons.cedarville.edu]