Actually, no, they’re not. AA is plagued by dropouts. What it’s good at is getting the people who remain with it to believe it’s helping them and say so. What it’s terrible at is getting people off alcohol.
My interpretation of overall conclusions: Individuals who complete an AA program are not significantly different from those on other treatments. The studies that attempt to randomize treatments show worse results for AA. The two studies that mention adherence rates show AA has more drop-outs.
Evidence?
Summary of ~12 studies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effectiveness_of_Alcoholics_Anonymous
My interpretation of overall conclusions: Individuals who complete an AA program are not significantly different from those on other treatments. The studies that attempt to randomize treatments show worse results for AA. The two studies that mention adherence rates show AA has more drop-outs.
Best meta-study I could find: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2648497
Conclusion: AA is not significantly different other treatments.
Penn and Teller
I’ll let you judge the reliability of the evidence. However, true or not, you may be entertained. You have been warned.
Edit: some hard(er) data 1 min 50 sec into part 3