What amazes me is how many people insist that AA is not religious. Of course it is. It is overtly religious and requires spiritual faith for participation. That's not necessarily a problem on its face, loads of people have reported great success with AA and NA programs, and so long as they're cool with the religious component, more power to them.

But denial of the overtly religious component can be a big problem.

Judges in the United States often offer diversionary programs as alternative to penal sentences for people with alcohol or drug abuse related convictions.

Those diversionary programs often either explicitly or practically require participation in NA or AA, which means a requirement to participate in religion, which is supposed to be unconstitutional.

When judges are forcing people to participate in religion, something is seriously wrong.