I know that 12 step programs are tremendously successful in helping people overcome addictions and are an extremely important tool and support structure to improving addicts lives and the effect and they have on their families BUT

I am SO tired of seeing them in every TV show that even touches slightly on addiction. All the scenes play exactly the same, all the dynamics are the same, most of the dialog is the same and it is just incredibly tedious repetitive and boring. I think the overexposure that 12 step programs get in shows really bring them down and I just kind of wish they would move on. They have the dramatic impact of watching people go to the laundramat and even worse they are continuously used as a magical macguffin to "cure" people of their addiction. "do you need to go to a meeting?" needs to be eliminated from potential dialogues in shows. Not only that but it always comes across as preachy and sanctimonius.

I realize they are very important and a good thing in real life, don't get me wrong. But it is boring and incredibly repetitive to see over and over and over.

Sorry for rant, flame away

Amen! I'm also tired of interventions...alcoholism, drugs, sex addiction, etc. It's gotten to the point where I don't dare go to parties or other large gatherings any more.

I hear what you're saying, yet if that's one of the most successful, widespread ways that people enter and sustain recovery, I'd say it comes off as realistic. Every once in a while there are shows that do different approaches to this; think of Jesse Pinkman's experience with group in Breaking Bad.

It's an easy scene to write, characters are expected to share their inner emotions in dialogue at an AA meeting. There are few other natural scenarios in life that make expository dialogue so easy to share a character's deep inner workings. That is my guess why we keep seeing the standard AA scene, over and over again.

While technically true, there is more to it. Recovery groups have the same long term success rate as people not going to them and try and quit on their own. So yes, it works as well as anything else does, but only in the way that nothing really seems to work.

There are certain behavioral conditioning that ups the odds a bit, but that requires a trained therapist which also ups the cost. Cheap religious prayer sessions run by volunteers is far more economically attractive to communities.

I dunno, I've seen the intervention from The Sopranos like 10 times, still one of my favorite scenes in the series.

That was a hilarious scene. Thanks for reminding me.