AA undeniably takes time, particularly meetings, service, and sponsorship.
In healthy families, all members of the family will engage in other activities, which might include, aside from work, exercise, religion and spirituality, friends, hobbies, interests, and community and societal activities.
As an AA member, some time does need to be diverted away from other activities into meetings and sponsoring others. However, the time is largely diverted away my other personal activities. There are 112 waking hours or so a week. That's plenty to allocate to everything that deserves my time.
If all non-work time is family time, and no one has time for these other activities, it's possible there's room for improvement all round in terms of balance, emotional health, and fully engaging in what life has to offer.
Work on the first nine Steps does take some time, but that's temporary (my sponsees get through the process in six weeks to three months, usually) and consists mostly in an hour's Step work first thing in the morning and a couple of phone calls. The first nine Steps are a one-off exercise.
Although the Steps require action, they're largely a set of principles and a method of living. So, patience, tolerance, kindness, and love take no more time than impatience, intolerance, unkindness, and spite. In fact, they'll save time, because they make things more harmonious. The Steps generally have eliminated all sorts of unnecessary activities from my life, and the emotional poise means I'm much more effective and efficient in my life. Way more gets fitted in with the Steps than could be without.
Lastly, without AA, I would not be sober, and without sobriety, I would not have a life.