That is part of the issue, as AA isn't an official program at all, in that it is a nonprofit group, but it is used as a kind of stopgap/interim solution to paper over the lack of research-backed government-funded alcohol treatment programs. However, court-mandated alcohol treatment programs don't exist in many areas, so AA is a quasi-offical program that creates a very scammy web of self-interested grifters posing as helpers, some of whom actually do help in some ways while enriching themselves and exerting undue influence over others' lives. The catty-corner halfway house cottage industry is full of usually Christian-presenting faith-based and faith-adjacent flophouses for addicts, recovering and otherwise, which is a kind of revolving door of desperate people being fleeced of all of the nothing they have, up to and including their dignity, leaving only shame.
In the 50s, LSD was being used in many clinical counseling settings. Time magazine was writing about it positively. LSD wasn't scheduled in the US until 1968.
> In one study in the late 1950s, Humphry Osmond gave LSD to alcoholics in Alcoholics Anonymous who had failed to quit drinking.[25] After one year, around 50% of the study group had not had a drink—a success rate that has never been duplicated by any other means.[26][27][28] Bill Wilson, the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, participated in medically supervised experiments on the effects of LSD on alcoholism and believed LSD could be used to cure alcoholics.[29]
In the 50s, LSD was being used in many clinical counseling settings. Time magazine was writing about it positively. LSD wasn't scheduled in the US until 1968.
> In one study in the late 1950s, Humphry Osmond gave LSD to alcoholics in Alcoholics Anonymous who had failed to quit drinking.[25] After one year, around 50% of the study group had not had a drink—a success rate that has never been duplicated by any other means.[26][27][28] Bill Wilson, the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, participated in medically supervised experiments on the effects of LSD on alcoholism and believed LSD could be used to cure alcoholics.[29]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_LSD