12/24/2025
I want to approach this carefully, because AA has helped millions of people and dismissing that would be dishonest and disrespectful.
But “AA is best” is a far bigger claim than this article is willing to examine.
What this research actually shows, and I think this matters, is that human connection works. Belonging works. Being witnessed by people who share a struggle works. Low-cost, accessible, relationship-based support works.
That doesn’t mean AA itself is universally “best.” It means relational support is powerful. AA is one container for that. A familiar one. A widely available one. For some people, a lifesaving one. For others, it’s a mismatch, philosophically, culturally, spiritually, developmentally.
And the studies don’t really grapple with that reality.
They measure abstinence outcomes among people who stay engaged , which already filters out those who felt shamed, coerced, alienated, or quietly left. They don’t account for the families damaged by rigidity, or the people who internalized relapse as personal failure rather than a signal of unmet needs. They don’t track emotional health, relational repair, or long-term resilience, only whether drinking stopped.
From a Family WellthCare™ lens, that’s a narrow outcome for a very complex human experience.
Here’s the uncomfortable truth we don’t like to name: AA often works because it gives people identity, structure, accountability, and community, not because it has a monopoly on truth about alcohol or the human psyche.
Which raises a bigger question we should be asking: Why has our system failed so badly at offering other credible, relational, non-shaming pathways, especially ones that involve families, nervous-system regulation, purpose, and emotional leadership?
If AA is outperforming therapy, that’s less an endorsement of AA and more an indictment of how clinical models have over-professionalized healing while under-relating it.
So yes, AA belongs in the conversation. But treating it as the gold standard closes the door on evolution.
The future isn’t AA or therapy. It’s relationship as the intervention, delivered in many forms, adapted to real humans in real contexts, not one model elevated above all others.
We don’t need fewer paths. We need better ones, and the humility to admit no single program owns healing.
https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2020/03/alcoholics-anonymous-most-effective-path-to-alcohol-abstinence.html?fbclid=IwY2xjawO1fmJleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFINUNrNTNDd2V0Qkw5V2ZHc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHh_4-pfY3GARb-x3a45bVyrNRLqxf1HFAcA9HsR-_palBulBFk8cTYzlquMt_aem_OZaujYeFcxUAi-Xs8MUa0w
A Stanford researcher and two collaborators conducted an extensive review of Alcoholics Anonymous studies and found that the fellowship helps more people achieve sobriety than therapy does.
