In my experience, I never try to explain what addiction is like, or what quitting drinking is like after having been an addict, to people who have never been there and still drink alcohol. They just won't ever understand, which is fine, since we don't all have to understand all things, and since that population includes a large fraction of humanity (most of the rest don't drink either, but have never been addicts, they just don't drink, often for religious reasons). I just generally don't go there.
It's therefore hard for me to understand someone from that population trying to tell me what addiction and abstinence is like, or ought to be like, or that there is no such thing as addiction, or PAWS, etc. There's a need for direct personal experience, and that can't really be compensated by a clinical sort of detachment relying on research and statistics.
Summed up, that's kinda my take on this. Moderation management has a role, and I'm sure the freedom model has a role, but probably not for the vast majority of alcohol addicts who need to hear the truth, which is that they need to stop drinking and remain abstinent permanently.