clipped from: friendlyatheist.com   

I’ve written about the topic before: Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12-step programs which require participants to submit to a higher power (PDF).

You would think that, because AA is so famously known and its program so widely used, it would at least be effective… right?

New research says otherwise.

So what works better than AA’s 12 steps?

secular psychotherapy. Because of the enduring popularity of AA and similar programs that involve a spiritual component, Miller and his team expected the patients in the spiritual group to do better than those in the secular group. They were wrong — at least in the short term
it took longer to see improvement among those in the spiritual group
those who received spiritual guidance reported being significantly more anxious and depressed after four months than those who got secular help

Simply put, programs without God/superstition worked better than programs with God/superstition.

God seems to just make the problems worse.