Your outside is in and your insight is out, so..

Come on people now!

Anyway, the point is this.  That the typical way folks in Alcoholics Anonymous ween themselves from the drug is through a tremendously selfish path, one that outwardly manifests itself through a nomenclature of selflessness, bending to a higher power, and understanding one's smallish stature in regard to chemical dependency.

That's one perspective anyway. At first blush, I have to say that, for a non-believer, this is one sad sack of solipsistic shit.  I mean, good god man, how the hell are you supposed to accomplish these principles or activities or mental exercises if you don't actually buy into it?  I know, I previously posted about the opportunity or possibility regarding buying into a higher power via Mary Karr's memior, which was very good and soul searching and highly allusionary, and all the shit that's supposed to make a memoir good and fine.  No problem.   I don't even really have a problem myself with this issue, necessarily, at least that I'm open to it.  But, but, well, here's the thing.

You need to come to a realization (as an alcoholic) that you're harming yourself.  You may need to reinvent yourself to some extent, as in tracking the path to alcohol dependency, and you probably need some good ole fashioned social support to get there.  But, and here we go, you still have to make a decision to do it, yourself.  God won't make the decision for you, even if there is a God and even if you or I believe in God too.

Step 6 concerns, for example, the readiness to have God remove your defects.  I think that is fair, but for now, let's just say that, well, we all have defects, and we'll continue to have them to some varying degrees, and that one cannot get rid of defects, and those who do believe they have no defects because they've been lobotomized or removed, or what have you, they start to develop an attitude of sorts, one that may drive other people to drink heavily.

Stress is simply part of life, and one must affirm life and living to stop drinking.

I'm not arguing that there's no God (I have no idea), or that a belief in God might not be helpful in kicking out the addiction in your head, or that AA isn't necessarily helpful for some folks, but, I will endeavor to secularize the AA principles for the next few days nonetheless, assuming it hasn't been done.  If it has been done, I'll go find them and update you tomorrow.