AA is not really "necessary" by any stretch of the word - whether *any* sort of in-/out- patient help is needed can only be determined by someone more appropriate than either of you (NO disrespect intended - proper withdrawal is both substance-dependent and highly specialized, I guess what I mean is a "lay man" of *any* sort who hasn't already learned, will NOT know what to do in many cases).
Some therapy/medications may be needed, it depends upon (mostly) how much alcohol tolerance he had, ie how often/much he drank, and how long he's been doing it. If he was drinking 20-50 shots a day, and just went cold turkey, there *IS* a real worry of major complications (seizures leading to coma/death - don't mean to scare you or anything, as it really only happens with alcohol and alprazolam in this type of scenario, and the initial dosage needs to be huge and the withdrawal needs to be immmediate, but still keep that in mind if he was a heavy drinker <for his size, of course, but still heavy is heavy!>)
AA is only one of many treatment options. Honestly, I personally would say avoid AA and use other options, but that's a personal/subjective thing.
<<<<< I should say now - you've posted once since you signed up, so unsure if you'll come back - but please feel free to 'private message' me for any q's/help on this, regardless of whether now or sometime down the road
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Medications - including ethanol(alcohol) - may/should be used (depending upon initial dose of alcohol). Benzo's** are the major medication used if seeing a doctor/hospital for severe alcohol withdrawals, but simply switching to beer, and tapering from where you started him today, should enable a smooth/solid taper to low, then no, beer/alcohol
) It really depends what his initial tolerance was, and then on the major factors that govern addiction/tolerance/dependence, but sometimes a cold turkey approach is the best, sometimes it's fatal. Just depends :// Oh and another thing - always remember a couple huuuge basics here: beer is WAY important, don't get a bottle of his favorite stuff and water it down, as some do for their tapers; if it's 100% cold-turkey, and there's no alcohol/benzo's, and it was from a large(er) tolerance, keep an eye out for seizure and other strong/dangerous withdrawal symptoms, especially off the bat; if you're going to do any sort of really fast taper, and it was a large(er) tolerance, look into the topic of "prolonged/protracted withdrawal syndrom", nothing that matters in the 1st few days but should be looked into early enough
**benzodiazepines - xanax, klonapin, valium, etc - are a major 1st-line treatment for an alcoholic going cold-turkey, IF he's still going cold turkey. Your buying him beer makes this a taper, so I should note - whether coming off benzo's OR beer/alcohol, you can always use the OTHER one to help taper, I've seen people come off xanax withdrawals with low-dose ethanol and people get off alcohol with xanax, as both work very, very similarly in the brain, far more than any other chemicals (they both work to inhibit GABA, the major difference - and anyone correct me if wrong - is that benzos are just more like a "scalpel", they go for GABA receptors more selectively, whereas alcohol is the "scepter" so to speak.
P