> you're the worst sinner if you start engaging in e.g. collective action for social change instead of individual self-centredness.

erm... did you mean the e.g. examples to be the other way around?

They are being sarcastic but their point is taken, it's a punishment based system on the individual for their moral failings rather than a collective solution based system.

No. 12 steps is very self-centred and while they don't say it's forbidden to join a union or prisoner's association, start a book club, work at a mutual aid centre or whatever and tell everyone 'hey I'm partially here because I need new friends and help to keep sober', it's also not something embedded in these types of programs.

Commonly the 'mentoring' in 12 steps is also based on you contacting your mentor, rather than building a network of people that check up on you whether you realise it's a good idea or not. This varies between groups, however, it's not as consistent as some of the other individualist traits they tend to have.

Edit: Personally I suspect this partially explains why 12 steps has a pretty bad success rate.