I'm now moving this over to the recovery forums. I just want to add my opinion. I think the biggest disconnect between people and the 12 steps is feeling like they are being forced into something. Being forced to do something is never enjoyable and doesn't give you a fair shake at actually experiencing it and making those hard decisions for yourself.
AA is a lot of things to a lot of people, which may seem like a cop-out answer, but please follow me here. For some people, it's an extremely basic, primitive level of accountability for their emotions. At the lowest of the levels, you might walk into a room and consistently hear "you're behaing like a dick to your wife man" or whatever and start to realize that you want change. For other people, yea, it clearly takes on something akin to a religious element, but that's fine too.
At the end of the day, it's a totally voluntary program and I believe 90% of its benefit is not found in "the books" or any of that shit, but just in having fellowship and accoutability with other people who are as fucked up as you are. The rest.... the big book, sponsorship and all of that, I also believe are some really powerful and strong ideas that help people get better all the time. I just believe that the vast majority of the power is in the group itself.
I think a lot of people have run away from 12-step meetings becasuse they feel coerced, either by friends, family or the law. I totalyl get that. The last thing I want to see though. is people not giving the program a chance simply beacsue it wasn' their idea originally.