The philosophy behind The Twelve Steps

Well, just to let you know - these steps aren't used in secular recovery programs. How could they be? How could a secular program ask you to give your life over to God?I can't speak to their "philosophical validity", whatever you expected that to mean, but I can tell you that it's fairly well-known that these 12-step programs have little practical validity. The estimated success rate of the AA 12-step program is no greater than the number of people who conquer their own addictions all on their own.

The AA organization doesn't release "success rate" numbers on its own, but Penn and Teller's Bullshit made it clear that the best numbers they could find for the effectiveness of the organization were statistically identical to the number of people who sober up on their own. From Wikipedia:

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However overall success rates were still less than spectacular, indicating the efficacy of modern treatments. Newsweek reported that "A year after completing a rehab program, about a third of alcoholics are sober, an additional 40 percent are substantially improved but still drink heavily on occasion, and a quarter have completely relapsed."[39]

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So, 65% of the people in the program go back to drinking. Moreover:

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There are many studies available that describe negative results from attending AA. Ditman et al. (1967) found a correlation between participation in AA and an increase in the alcoholics' rate of multiple arrests for public drunkenness.[51] Brandsma et al. (1979) found a correlation between AA and an increased rate of binge drinking. After several months of participating in AA, the alcoholics in AA were doing five times as much binge drinking as a control group that got no treatment at all, and nine times as much binge drinking as another group that got Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy. Brandsma argues that teaching people that they are alcoholics who are powerless over alcohol becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy[52]

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Alcoholics Anonymous - WikipediaAddiction is a complex phenomenon with both biochemical and behavioral causes, but one thing that I think we can be adamantly certain about is that addiction is not caused when people feel insufficiently powerless over their own lives and behavior, which is why I think the whole focus on surrender to a higher power is ridiculous.Some people say that others have an "addictive personality", but I think it's less a function of personality and much more a function of biochemistry, possibly heritable genetic factors. (We know that the children of alcoholics are more likely to be alcoholics themselves, of course that could simply be due to social factors from growing up in the household of an alcoholic.)

Look, that's just nonsense. That's the kind of shoddy thinking people display when they think that a "prayer to God" at a school event (for instance) isn't a violation of the first amendment because "just plain God" is "non-denominational.""God" is the name of the Judeo-Christian deity. There's no such thing as a "secular God", by definition. It's a contradiction in terms. C'mon! Look at your steps. "We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity." "Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character." Magical acts of restoration and defect-removal require a resume with some pretty specific qualifications, Phat. Like - being a deity.The 12 steps of AA are not a secular program, and this has been recognized by every court in the land, which has found that it's a violation of free expression of religion for courts to mandate participation in AA-style 12-step programs. If addictions have no biochemical basis how do you explain the symptoms of withdrawal? You can die from withdrawal. That's a little more serious than might be expected from simply a lack of personal responsibility.And it doesn't explain the efficacy of drugs like heroin antagonists and ibogaine that cure addiction. (Of course, most Western governments prevent addiction treatment with ibogaine, because the idea of a drug that cures addiction is anathema to the Drug War philosophy that it's all about people lacking "personal responsibility.")

Not constitutionally.

If people are powerless to stop, how do you explain all the addicts who stop?I really don't see powerlessness as a useful way to discuss the problem of addiction. There's a reason that drug addiction is a very real problem, but things like "video game addiction" are just made-up excuses to justify expensive treatment at boutique clinics. Drug addiction causes real physical changes in the brain and body. It's a disease.You don't send a cancer patient to "Cancerholics Anonymous", you start treatment with surgeries or chemotherapy. Because they have a problem that isn't just in their head (jokes about brain cancer notwithstanding.) It's the same with drug and alcohol abuse. A system of counseling is required, as well, to deal with the behavioral issues that led to the abuse in the first place, but it's a physical problem too that must be addressed. Talking about "God" doesn't do that. I don't think it would be anything so glib as a bunch of steps, but why don't you look up Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy, as mentioned in my link, and we can discuss it as an alternative to woo?

IANAL, but my understanding is that you can be given the option of either jail or approved treatments, and one of those treatments can include AA as long as there's a secular alternative; but given only the choice between jail or AA is unconstitutional.So, you're right.

Rational behavior emotive therapy is one such program.