This is the 85th anniversary of the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous, back in 1935 by Bill Wilson, a WW I veteran and stockbroker, and Dr. Robert Smith, a retired surgeon.
They developed their 12-step program in the ‘Big Book’, with a religious and theistic basis, five of the steps mentioning ‘God’ (hence, the difficulty of the program for atheists). Their doctrine is simple: The only way out of alcohol addiction is total and unremitting abstinence, admitting that one is ‘powerless’ over one’s addiction, relying upon a ‘higher power’, to see one through the rest of one’s life, sober.
However many people A.A. has helped – and it seems to have helped many – there are some skeptics. As this article from the Atlantic points out, it is nearly impossible to empirically verify the success rate of A.A., as they keep no records, their members are unknown (anonymity being an essential feature), and almost all of what evidence there is, is anecdotal.