[giraffe_lady]

Yes, your biggest issue with it is also my biggest issue with it. It holds this spot in the cultural consciousness as like, the only/best general-purpose addiction program when it absolutely is not that.

Judges and mental health professionals sending people to AA without specifically understanding its practices and how those will help that individual is terrible and I hate that it's as common as it is.

And speaking from within the US, a lot of the weird AA-isms I think are adaptions to our fucked up healthcare system and general attitudes towards personal agency and addiction. No one is picking people up off the streets and giving them top-notch medicalized in-patient addiction treatment you know? AA isn't ideal or even necessarily very good for a lot of things. But it is there and it is free, and no matter how fucked up your life is they won't turn you away. Can't really say that about many other treatment paradigms right now.