But the premise of the AA falls flat if you don't accept the notion of a higher power (and many chapters of the AA are fine with substituting arbitrary objects

But the premise of the AA falls flat if you don't accept the notion of a higher power (and many chapters of the AA are fine with substituting arbitrary objects for God for that purpose so they're acknowledging the higher power doesn't actually have to do anything). Yes, the first step in beating any addiction is to recognise that you have an addiction and to decide that you want to get rid of it. But that's true for any other psychology problem: if someone's clinically depressed but refuses to cooperate with their therapist, they're not going to get better. The thing is that with normal secular therapy you learn to control yourself. You learn to reflect on your thoughts and why you might have them. If you're depressed, you don't really want to kill yourself, you just think you do because you can't imagine things will ever be any different. If you're addicted, you think you need the drug because it's the only way to feel better but of course it isn't. That said, the bigger problem is that addictions are rarely isolated problems. There's usually something that started it and something that sustains it. Frequently addiction starts out as a coping strategy (I'd say for many adults nicotine and caffeine are obvious coping strategies although they become inefficient on a chemical level fairly quickly). I'm not seeing addicts should avoid therapy and simply will themselves out of their addiction. This works for some people but obviously not universally (again, consider how giving up nicotine is so challenging it has become a widely known trope in Western media). But those people who can't do it on their own should instead seek actual help, not the AA. For all we know, the small group of people who actually managed to overcome their addiction while attending AA would have been able to do it on their own, whereas those who failed would have benefited from actual fact-based therapy. You wouldn't suggest a treatment as the go-to default solution if its viability was never tested and there are easier and more reliable treatments that have a scientific basis and have been proven to work. The great thing about the Sinclair Method is that it works both if you do it yourself or with supervision. You don't have to will yourself to stay sober, you just have to will yourself to take the pills and your body does the rest. Sure, that in itself is a feat of willpower but that's why actual therapy is a thing that exists.