I suspect that US judges inflict AA-style rehab as punishment; my experience of USAians is that they tend to reach for punishment as their first resort (I have USAian relatives, and I've lived there). Having judges elected is part of the problem.

SMART recovery doesn't involve any religious beliefs, doesn't require you to deny that you have agency, and doesn't require you to say "recovering" if you've actually recovered. For some people, it works better than 12-step.