I don't know about the treatment, but this statement found in the article is questionable as well. While it acknowledges AA doesn't work it also seems to think it is strickly a medical problem. I think the approach doesn't address the physc addiction issues at all but instead just focus's on the physical addiction. I could see it "working" for people really ready to face the emotional and phsyc factors head on, but for those not ready, it will fall way short.
"The 12-step program is an outdated 20th-century concept," says Clifford Bernstein, an assistant clinical professor of anesthesiology at UC Irvine and medical director of the Waismann Institute, the nation's leading rapid detox center. "For 70 years, thanks to Alcoholics Anonymous, addicts have been told they're suffering from a spiritual problem. AA assumes that you can talk someone out of their addiction - which is ridiculous. Addiction is a medical problem. If somebody has cancer, you don't try to talk them out of their disease."
