I didn’t say 12 step only is good for rehab. I said it is free. Just a question of economics. Smart meetings? Is that not a group people following a method of recovery i.e a recovery group. Why doesn’t someone from that organisation, yourself perhaps, volunteer to take it into and institution or rehab.? There are, I have heard, quite a few non 12 step rehabs these days. Maybe take you ideas into one of them?
I am open to all methods. Whatever works. My preference is that folks with a drinking problem keep AA as a last resort. It seems to work better that way. The only reason I ended up there was that nothing else had worked.
I understand your experience with the steps. Really, you had trouble with step one in how it identifies your problem, and you didn’t like step two which identifies the AA solution. The best thing to do at that point is exactly what you did, go and find another solution. Everyone is perfectly free to try that.