I agree, but having attended AA meetings to support my significant other I can really see how the groups and meetings help. For the people like you and me who can work through it ourselves, there will be a hundred who can't and where the program helps. Personally I have an issue with giving up control absolutely as it is worded, since I like to be in control of my destiny, but I respect and appreciate the wonders that AA can work for people.

It’s been established for a long time in the treatment field that AA (or pretty much anything else) works a lot better than no treatment.

Brandsma 1980 is the only study I can think of off of the top of my head comparing AA (and a few other therapies) to no treatment; AA (and everything else) did significantly better than getting no help.

What this new Cochrane study demonstrates is that AA is more effective at giving alcoholics long-term abstinence than traditional psychotherapy treatments.

It works for a lot of people. For many people, particularly the worst cases, it does not. Most people who end up in AA have tried self-help already.