Effectiveness
See also: Alcoholics_Anonymous#Effectiveness, Crystal_Meth_Anonymous#Effectiveness, Emotions_Anonymous#Effectiveness, Gamblers_Anonymous#Effectiveness, Narcotics_Anonymous#Effectiveness, Nicotine Anonymous#Effectiveness, and Self-help_groups_for_mental_health#EffectivenessAlcoholics Anonymous is the largest of all the twelve-step programs (from which all other twelve-steps programs are derived), followed by Narcotics Anonymous; the majority of twelve-step members are recovering from addiction to alcohol or other drugs. The majority of twelve-step programs, however, address illnesses other than addiction. For example, the third largest twelve-step program, Al-Anon, assists family members and friends of people who have alcoholism and other addictions. About twenty percent of twelve-step programs are for addiction recovery, the other eighty percent address a variety of problems from debt to depression. It would be an error to assume the effectiveness of twelve-step methods at treating problems in one domain translates to all or to another domain, therefore readers are directed to relevant sections in each group's article.
Read more about this topic: Twelve-step Program