According to recent estimates, over two million people are currently in recovery in Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) worldwide. This includes about 1.5 million people in the U.S. and over 500,000 people abroad, with over 120,000 meetings per week.

Narcotics Anonymous (NA) also has hundreds of thousands of members, and 12-step programs have been extended to various other mental and physical health conditions, such as gambling, obesity, compulsive sex, and more. The number of people served by these programs exceeds all other self-help approaches combined.

Nevertheless, AA and NA are often criticized by social scientists, some of whom flatly reject the 12-step approach. In his 2014 book, The Sober Truth, for example, Dr. Lance Dodes states bluntly that AA “simply doesn’t work,” citing a 5-10 percent success rate. Dodes goes on to claim that AA harms more people than it helps.

Other critiques of 12-step programs abound, including their emphasis on powerlessness, their religious-spiritual focus, and their limited research base. AA members have even been described by academics as authoritarian, presumably because of their tightly structured program. Several critiques, including some written in the last five years, are impressionistic—something scientists are typically trained to avoid.

In my 25 years as an academic psychologist, I witnessed these negative attitudes toward 12-step programs many times. During informal conversations, at scientific conferences, and in published research, AA was often viewed skeptically, for reasons I elaborate below. These views—now distributed widely across the internet—can lead people who need help to decide 12-step programs aren’t worth trying. After all, shouldn’t social scientists know best?

A distinguishing feature of science is internal consistency—using the same methods, rules, and standards to address all scientific questions. Without internal consistency, one........

© Psychology Today