So what part of 12-step recovery got debunked? The whole thing about AA's Big Book is that it was written AFTER the program worked for the first 100 or so alcoholics. One cannot come after the fact 70+ years later and now deny what already happened.
From my own life experience, I may have been able to stay off alcohol and drugs due to my own self-serving stubbornness. But I didn't begin to recover until I accepted AA. It was though AA that I learned who God was and that He was really on my side. And I experienced the transformation that occurred when God did for me what I could not do for myself.
God is referred to in 7 of the 12 steps. If they were honest about it, those opposing the 12 steps are really just opposing God. But then there are those who are constitutionally incapable of being honest.