AA is less anarchic in practice than is principle.
AA being used by the justice system puts it at odds with anarchy, as anarchy is whatever you and your group want it to be, which is somewhat incompatible with state-mandated fill-in-the-blank.
Bill W. wanted to introduce LSD to AA in order to help folks understand what he meant by higher power, but the centering of Judeo-Christian ideology by other early AA members almost pushed Bill W. out of his own group.
AA was subverted long ago from within by the status quo it attempted to break free from. Whether or not it functions as an alcoholic support group is a separate issue.
I've seen other drugs used in therapies too. MDMA phychotherapy is more common and even legal in some places. Because it can temporarily remove internal barriers that make it much easier to reach the painful spot your brain is trying to shield. And without reaching it you can't really work on it. Several of my friends have had great experiences with this but I don't do any drugs so I never tried. I think there's too much stigma on these things. In another example, in the Netherlands cannabis can be prescribed as a pain killer for chronic issues, it works better and has way less side effects than other strong painkillers.
But an official program using illegal drugs is of course a bit of an issue. Though I'm not sure if LSD was illegal in the 50s?
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]
AA being used by the justice system puts it at odds with anarchy, as anarchy is whatever you and your group want it to be, which is somewhat incompatible with state-mandated fill-in-the-blank.
Bill W. wanted to introduce LSD to AA in order to help folks understand what he meant by higher power, but the centering of Judeo-Christian ideology by other early AA members almost pushed Bill W. out of his own group.
AA was subverted long ago from within by the status quo it attempted to break free from. Whether or not it functions as an alcoholic support group is a separate issue.
I’ve written more about this before on HN:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44294352