Not just that, but AA is tailored around a certain personality type. There's a certain type of personality, certain type of big ego, that left to its own devices will always justify itself. We all are rationalizers, but these are the kings of rationalization, and also bullshit. What AA does for these people is provide them with a community of fellow bullshitters who see right through all their bullshit and will call them on it. The whole disease label is first and foremost a way of framing the social function of the group, the actual epidemiological subtleties of what constitutes a disease is really neither her nor there.
What I find irritating about these scientists crusading for "real science" and denouncing AA is that not a one of them would have the first clue how to get through to this type of alcoholic personality. All their ivory tower rhetoric just washes right off their back.