In my country, outside of AA, there is quite a big effort going in to help alcoholics and addicts. Our universities offer degrees in addiction medicine and therapy, and there are a few recovered alcoholics and addicts that go and work in the field.
They find that their own experience of recovery, especially 12 step based, is not recognised in the degree course, nor is mention of it permitted in the counselling sessions. Having had the experience of addiction is not that useful if you can't talk about how you recovered. Instead, one of my friends tells me, he has to recommend things he knows will not work, which he finds incredibly frustrating. But these services are provided by government and must be in line with the current political view.
The majority working in the field are non addicts, but the control over what the therapists can say or do means that even a recovered addict working as a therapist is restricted in what they can suggest.