Addiction ... in the last decade Australians have become more aware of the problems of alcohol abuse. Source: ThinkStock

“It’s also overwhelming because you are met with care and kindness when you are at your lowest point, you don’t have a lot of self-esteem and you don’t feel good about who you are.”

These are the words of an anonymous working mother whose battle with alcohol saw her forced into rehabilitation and introduced to Alcoholics Anonymous.

“It’s life-saving. I was a daily drinker and I wouldn’t have a family or a job,” she says.

HAZARDOUS LEVELS: Australian women drowing in alcohol

Changing lives ... Alcoholics Anonymous has helped countless addicts — but it’s not without controversy. Source: Supplied

It’s moved with the times and is running support meetings on Facebook and allows people to join in via Skype but remains true to its original 12 step recovery program.

However, as the support group founded by an alcoholic stockbroker Bill Wilson and an alcoholic surgeon Bob Smith in 1935 celebrates its 80th birthday, it’s come under criticism for being faith-based rather than evidence-based.

Five of its 12 steps mention God and it requires prayer and spiritual awakening from its members, hardly the stuff of modern evidence-based medicine.

Retired Harvard psychiatry professor Lance Dodes who studied AA retention rates in his recent book, The Sober Truth: Debunking the Bad Science Behind 12-Step Programs and the Rehab Industry, found AA’s actual success rate somewhere between 5 and 8 per cent.

Gabrielle Glaser, author of Her Best-Kept Secret: Why Women Drink — And How They Can Regain Control, says there is no evidence AA’s system works and popular support for the program is shutting off access to new anti-addiction medicines and other approaches that do work.

Changing tact ... Alcoholics Anonymous has evolved with modern technologies, offering meetings on Facebook and Skype. Source: News Limited

It’s 70 years since the fellowship began in Australia.

AA’s 12-step program requires alcoholics to admit they have a problem, it requires abstinence from alcohol and it provides the mutual support of other alcoholics who are recovering from the problem.

In one area of Sydney people who have a problem with alcohol can choose to attend up to 80 meetings a week.

At any one time it is estimated there are 20,000 Australians using the support group which runs around 2,000 groups around the country.

Chairman of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) the non-alcoholic Maurice Smith says the fellowship works because it encourages people to confront their problem with alcohol.

“Telling your story works for a number of reasons, if you are helping yourself you have a much bigger investment in the process,” he says.

“You have an investment, if you have been sober for 15 years you don’t want to have to reset the clock,” he says.

The organisation’s system of recovering alcoholics sponsoring other alcoholics works because the sponsor can see they are helping someone else and they feel good about themselves.

Knowing when to stop ... AA helps those who’ve hit rock bottom. Picture: iStock Source: Supplied

“If you are the person being helped you know the person helping you understands what you’re going through, that person has also been dragged out of the gutter,” he said.

Smith says the other key to the success of AA is that it is entirely self- funded.

“We worked out years ago that if you rely on outside help the government will say to you we’ll give you $x but you’ve got to do action y, and we don’t want to be beholden to anybody,” he says.

AA meetings are funded by passing around a hat at the gathering to cover the cost of renting the venue and providing tea and coffee.

Sales of the organisation’s Big Book which sets out the 12-step process for beating an alcohol problem also generates revenue.

But asked to provide evidence the method works, Smith has none.

AA can’t even tell you how many members it has because they are anonymous.

No records are kept of either its members or how many of those who attend meetings recover from their problem with alcohol.

The reputation of the group is built simply on the testament of a few who claim it helped them battle their addiction.

Professor Robin Room Director of the Centre for Alcohol Policy Research at Turning Point Alcohol & Drug Centre calls Alcoholics Anonymous a “wonder of the world”.

Time to talk ... Alcoholics Anonymous still offers a supportive program for recovering alcoholics. Source: News Limited

He studied the way AA worked in seven countries and says it’s impossible to do a randomised study to prove its success.

“Many people have testified it’s been very helpful even if they don’t follow the full rules,” he says.

“They take what they can use and leave the rest,” he says.

“The main difference is it is not led by professionals who are trained as doctors, counsellors or psychologists its mutual help, drunks helping each other,” he says.

“The group is its own master”.

AA was born out of a connection its founders had to a lay religious movement called the Oxford Movement founded by American Christian missionary Dr. Franklin Nathaniel Daniel Buchman.

The Oxford Movement’s central tenets were that: “All people are sinners”; “All sinners can be changed”; “Confession is a prerequisite to change”; “The change can access God directly”; “Miracles are again possible”; and “The change must change others.

Bill Wilson parted from the Oxford Movement but its principles influenced the way he set up Alcoholics Anonymous.

In 1939 Alcoholics Anonymous published its basic textbook which set out the core of what became the 12 steps of recovery.

Recovery ... the famous twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. Source: News Corp Australia

In 1942 the Medical Superintendent of Rydalmere Hospital in Sydney NSW, Dr. Sylvester Minogue read an article in a US medical journal about AA and tried, without success at first, to set up an Australian branch.

In 1945 after joining forces with Father Thomas Dunlea, the founder of Boy’s Town in Australia, AA meetings began in Sydney’s Sutherland area and the group grew from there.

Professor Room says AA’s members played an important role behind the scenes role in founding the modern drug and alcohol treatment systems in Australia.

“AA is widely recognised in the population as a resource, it is the first thing people say when alcohol becomes a problem it is something everyone in a vague kind of way knows about,” Professor Room says.

However, controversy is building around AA’s method, particularly in the US where it is the predominant method of treatment and where some courts order people to attend the group.

Gabrielle Glaser reveals American neuroscientist John David Sinclair’s studies found a fundamental flaw in AA’s abstinence-based treatment. “Going cold turkey only intensifies cravings,” she says.

His work showed the drug naltrexone used to treat drug addicts by blocking their opiate receptors also works to block the effects of alcohol.

Sinclair prescribes patients take the medication an hour before drinking and his research shows 78 per cent of patients reduced their drinking to about 10 drinks a week using this method. Others stopped drinking.

Medical treatments ... there are drugs one can take but not all alcoholics are using them. Source: ThinkStock

Despite the scientifically proven success of these methods, Glaser says less than one per cent of US alcoholics are treated using naltrexone.

Two other drugs can also be used to treat alcoholism. Antabuse induces nausea and dizziness when taken with alcohol and the drug acamprosate reduces cravings for alcohol.

Glaser fears by promoting abstinence as the only valid goal of treatment AA “likely deters people with mild or moderate alcohol-use disorder from seeking help”.

“The prospect of never taking another sip is daunting, to say the least. It comes with social costs and may even be worse for one’s health than moderate drinking: research has found that having a drink or two a day could reduce the risk of heart disease, dementia, and diabetes,” she says.

In the last decade Australians have become more aware of the problems of alcohol use and we’ve started to cut our consumption.

In May, the Australian Bureau Statistics revealed on a per capita basis Australians consumed 9.7 litres of pure alcohol in 2014, this was down from 10.63 litres in 2009.

Only half as many teenagers aged under 18 are drinking compared to ten years ago.

To contact Alcoholics Anonymous, go to their website or call 1300 22 22 22