There are no “patients” in AA; just self-identifying alcoholics. And I understand where you’re coming from, but for every story of someone who was “disempowered” by a belief that they are an addict for life I can give you a story of someone who started drinking again after decades of sobriety and completely destroyed the good life they had found.

Alcoholism is what you might call a hard problem, in that every case is unique and there is no good way to know which “kind” of alcoholic you are dealing with, or which approach is going to have the most success, just by ticking off symptoms. AA clearly works, and works astonishingly well, for a non-negligible portion of the people who try it.