The way most medicine comes about is that you have various treatments and you test them and see if it’s effective and then you implement it. And it seems like many things in addiction treatment have happened the other way around. They evolved because they kind of came out of the 12-step movement and addicts helping other addicts. And then they evolved into treatment programs—I think in part because the medical system didn't want to deal with addicts, [which is] unfortunate.
....It’s been helpful for a lot of people and I don’t think the problem is with the downfalls of AA. Part of the problem is that the medical treatment industry adopted AA … lock, stock and barrel as the mainstay of treatment. What I discovered in writing the book is that a lot of the things that people [in treatment] complained about having to do with AA were not actually part of AA. For example: Bill W. never said that AA was the only way, but many people told me that they felt that in treatment they were led to believe that if they didn't get the program, they were going to fail.
- interview with The Fix
Jane Brody's article