Tell that to the millions who are alive today because of a 12-step program. And then go on to explain how the 12-step strategy has been adopted to overcome just about every addiction from crack cocaine to sex. It must be because it doesn't work.
Yet the data shows that just as many of them would still be alive if there were no AA. For every AA-cured person, there are one or more people who recovered with no treatment whatsoever. And this is over a 20-year span, so the AA claim that those who just stop drinking are walking timebombs isn't valid either. Even Bush stopped drinking the old-fashioned way -- he just stopped.
AA's supposed success is based on argument from anecdote. You see all those individual successes, so you think the the program must be effective.
It works if you work it. It's the work that works. :~D
It's different things for different people. That's part of the problem with AA is that they insist all other methods are wrong. Some folks absolutely need the structure of AA, some people don't, and for some people (people like Stan's dad in SP, people that will grasp any excuse for their own powerlessness) it's the worst idea in the world. I'm glad AA exists and I'm glad it helps as many people as it does, but the idea that there is no other way to get rid of destructive behavior is simply silly, that's the one part of AA that desperately needs to change. Other recovery organizations tend to work as a partnership, they try to recognize the people that they can't help and direct them to somebody else; AA's mentality that everybody else is wrong in the long run could be hurting people.