Just my opinion, drinking is a life style. I socialized with people that drank like I did. Most all of my social events included alcohol.
Even without using AA as my source to get sober, I had to distant myself from the people that drank like I did. I also, had to exclude bars and any events where a lot of drinking would occur.
After a lot of years of not drinking, going to bars and socializing with heavy drinkers are the things I no longer do.
There was a void in my early sobriety that AA filled my time with.
Any type of recovery can be used to fill that void.
What ever type of recovery any in early recovery uses, become 100% involved in it.