Good response, thank you! I found the article I posted interesting but I have no horse in the race about whether AA is effective or not. Seems pretty convincing that it isn't.

I find theorising addiction both unfortunately directly relevant and applicable and abstractly extremely interesting. I recently read an article which was satirical (but seemingly not entirely so) arguing that alcohol (and, consequently, addiction) is a disease of civilisation, Gilgamesh-style. But Amazonian foragers and horticulturalists (to my knowledge) get loaded on manioc beer (and seemingly did so before Old World contact), not to mention dolphins and elephants getting high on all kinds of shit. Fair enough that in a natural setting there are systemic limits on these things so addiction doesn't often arise. So, how, why? And what roles do different kinds of intoxication (or other non-intoxicating addictive states) play? A million questions for a million different answers, all important in their own way. Gets at the fundamental questions of pain and pleasure and why and how we do anything at all in life.