Prayer, meditation and therapies like CBT certainly help prevent relapse, but hard core alcoholism requires medical intervention to manage the shakes and delirium tremens (the best and most vivid hallucinations I have had. Better than plant hallucinogens.) The very definition of the disorder is a total loss of control. It's a very scary feeling to know you're going over the falls and there's no way to the safety of shore. The medical community long ago classified addiction as a disease (substance abuse disorder)

I used to read Nisargadatta to try and get sober, but it didn't help. He seems to imply there's some deeper level of consciousness beyond just resting without thought or emotion in the present moment.

I found the teachings of Zen to much more helpful and in fact many Western therapies like DBT and Wise Mind are based on those principles.