Having been a (degreed, licensed and certified) workers comp case manager for many years, I can relate to your comments professionally-and personally as well from a couple of life experiences.
It was not/is not uncommon for injured clients to abuse alcohol and prescription drugs to self medicate for pain. Sometimes, it was so problematic that the insurance carrier would label it as secondary to injury, and authorize therapy as part of that individual’s return-to-work plan.
AA was a choice provided, as well as several professional therapists-but some clients were resistant to professional therapy, so they would go to AA/NA and many went home after meetings lecturing family and friends, became intolerant, condemning and rude, insisting they were embarked on a program best for them, and too bad it was selfish.
Many lost spouses and families to divorce, which prompted the families to call the insurance carrier and the company I worked for, insisting it was all our fault even though the client had chosen his/her therapy provider-one family even filed a suit-talk about co-dependent behavior...
I’ve walked away from dear friends I’ve known since college who became enmeshed in AA and its affiliates, simply because their involvement magnified all their most obnoxious personality traits-I may miss them, but not enough to listen to them for more than 10 minutes at a time. That is just my own experience-results may vary with each individual...
It wasn’t so much that her personality changed, but that she spend all of her time going to meeting, working district functions, sponsoring new people and helping those who relapsed. It became her new life. She was not there as a mother when she was drunk and she was not there when she was consumed with AA. I likened it to replacing one addiction with another and the family came in second.