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In The Beginning
The
story of the history of Alcoholics Anonymous begins way before
its actual founding.
Much
of the history begins with the Temperance movements of the
mid-1800's. One of these movements was the Washington Temperance
Society or the Washingtonians. Several self-admitted drunkards
founded this movement not in Washington, D.C. but in Baltimore,
Maryland. These men met in, of all places, a tavern to form the
movement. It grew in leaps and bounds with parades, Temperance
Pledges and hospitals. It eventually grew to such proportions
that they forgot what their original intentions were.
They
recruited politicians and celebrities. Everyone was "taking the
pledge." A movement first started by alcoholics, for alcoholics,
eventually became open to everyone and was watered-down so much
that eventually it began to disappear.
Several
other movements for alcoholics developed afterwards from which
AA took several components to incorporate into their program of
recovery. One of these, Peabodyism, named after Richard Peabody,
a therapist from the Boston, Mass. area.
Later
when Mr. Peabody moved to the Gramercy Park area of New York
City his office was very close to Calvary Episcopal Church where
the Rev. Samuel M. Shoemaker, Jr. was Pastor.
The Oxford Group
The
next movement was the Oxford Group. This movement which began
around 1908 was originally called "A First Century Christian
Fellowship" was begun by Frank N.D. Buchman, a Lutheran minister
from Pennsylvania. The Oxford Group was focused upon changing
the world, "One Person at a Time." At Oxford Group "House
Parties," members "surrendered" on their knees and gave
testimony (or shared) of their deliverance from their "sin" of
alcoholism, smoking, etc. Around 1940 the Oxford Group changed
its name to Moral Re-Armament. This movement still exists today
with offices worldwide.
Bill
W. was introduced to the Oxford Group by Ebby T., an old boyhood
friend in November of 1934. He was a drinking buddy of Bill's
who had gotten "religion" through the Oxford Group after being
introduced to it by Rowland H. Rowland reportedly had been in
therapy with Doctor Carl G. Jung in Switzerland. Doctor Jung had
told Rowland, according to official AA history, that there was
no hope for him. No hope that is, unless he were to experience a
"vital spiritual experience." Rowland reportedly was introduced
to the Oxford Group by Doctor Jung and then passed the message
along to Ebby.
Recent
research by Wally P., (archivist and historian) has turned up
Rowland's personal records, which are at the Providence
Historical Society in Providence, Rhode Island. Rowland's
personal records do not indicate that he was in Switzerland
during the period stated in most AA history books.
Bill W's "Success"
Bill
W.'s drinking had progressed to such a point that in 1933 he was
admitted to Towns Hospital in New York City. This was the first
of four hospitalizations for alcoholism between 1933-1934. It
was at Towns Hospital that Dr. William Duncan Silkworth declared
him a hopeless alcoholic. According to Norman Vincent Peale, Dr.
Silkworth said the Great Physician, Jesus Christ, could cure
alcoholics who were declared hopeless.
Again, another person who said that only a vital spiritual
experience would "cure" the alcoholic. Soon
after Ebby's visit with him, Bill was admitted for the last time
to Towns Hospital in December 1934. It was during this
hospitalization that Bill experienced his "white light"
spiritual experience. Bill reported this experience to Dr.
Silkworth and was soon after released from the hospital never to
drink alcohol again until his death in 1971.
Bill
attended Oxford Group meetings, went to the Calvary Mission and
began working with other Alcoholics. He did not have much
success at getting them sober during the first five months, but
was told by his wife, Lois, that he had remained sober for the
first time in many years.
Though Bill had considered himself a dismal failure due to his
inability to get anyone sober, he did finally realize through
Lois' help, that he was a success. He was a success because he
had stayed sober.
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The Birth of A.A. and its growth
in U.S./Canada
A.A. had its beginnings in
1935 at Akron, Ohio, as the outcome of a meeting between Bill
W., a New York stockbroker, and Dr. Bob S., an Akron surgeon.
Both had been hopeless alcoholics. Prior to that time, Bill and
Dr. Bob had each been in contact with the Oxford Group, a mostly
nonalcoholic fellowship that emphasized universal spiritual
values in daily living. In that period, the Oxford Groups in
America were headed by the noted Episcopal clergyman, Dr. Samuel
Shoemaker. Under this spiritual influence, and with the help of
an old-time friend, Ebby T., Bill had gotten sober and had then
maintained his recovery by working with other alcoholics, though
none of these had actually recovered. Meanwhile, Dr. Bob’s
Oxford Group membership at Akron had not helped him enough to
achieve sobriety. When Dr. Bob and Bill finally met, the effect
on the doctor was immediate. This time, he found himself face to
face with a fellow sufferer who had made good. Bill emphasized
that alcoholism was a malady of mind, emotions and body. This
all-important fact he had learned from Dr. William D. Silkworth
of Towns Hospital in New York, where Bill had often been a
patient. Though a physician, Dr. Bob had not known alcoholism to
be a disease. Responding to Bill’s convincing ideas, he soon got
sober, never to drink again. The founding spark of A.A. had been
struck.
Both men immediately set to
work with alcoholics at Akron’s City Hospital, where one patient
quickly achieved complete sobriety. Though the name Alcoholics
Anonymous had not yet been coined, these three men actually made
up the nucleus of the first A.A. group. In the fall of 1935, a
second group of alcoholics slowly took shape in New York. A
third appeared at Cleveland in 1939. It had taken over four
years to produce 100 sober alcoholics in the three founding
groups.
Early in 1939, the
Fellowship published its basic textbook, Alcoholics Anonymous.
The text, written by Bill, explained A.A.’s philosophy and
methods, the core of which was the now well-known Twelve Steps
of recovery.
The book was also reinforced by case histories of some thirty
recovered members. From this point, A.A.’s development was
rapid.
Also in 1939, the
Cleveland Plain Dealer
carried a series of articles about A.A., supported by warm
editorials. The Cleveland group of only twenty members was
deluged by countless pleas for help. Alcoholics sober only a few
weeks were set to work on brand-new cases. This was a new
departure, and the results were fantastic. A few months later,
Cleveland’s membership had expanded to 500. For the first time,
it was shown that sobriety could be mass-produced.
Meanwhile, in New York, Dr.
Bob and Bill had in 1938 organized an over-all trusteeship for
the budding Fellowship. Friends of John D. Rockefeller Jr.
became board members alongside a contingent of A.A.s. This board
was named The Alcoholic Foundation. However, all efforts to
raise large amounts of money failed, because Mr. Rockefeller had
wisely concluded that great sums might spoil the infant society.
Nevertheless, the foundation managed to open a tiny office in
New York to handle inquiries and to distribute the A.A. book —
an enterprise which, by the way, had been mostly financed by the
A.A.s themselves.
The book and the new office
were quickly put to use. An article about A.A. was carried by
Liberty magazine in the fall of 1939, resulting in some 800
urgent calls for help. In 1940, Mr. Rockefeller gave a dinner
for many of his prominent New York friends to publicize A.A.
This brought yet another flood of pleas. Each inquiry received a
personal letter and a small pamphlet. Attention was also drawn
to the book Alcoholics Anonymous, which soon moved into brisk
circulation. Aided by mail from New York, and by A.A. travelers
from already-established centers, many new groups came alive. At
the year’s end, the membership stood at 2,000.
Then, in March 1941, the
Saturday Evening Post featured an excellent article about A.A.,
and the response was enormous. By the close of that year, the
membership had jumped to 6,000, and the number of groups
multiplied in proportion. Spreading across the U.S. and Canada,
the Fellowship mushroomed.
By 1950, 100,000 recovered
alcoholics could be found worldwide. Spectacular though this
was, the period 1940-1950 was nonetheless one of great
uncertainty. The crucial question was whether all those
mercurial alcoholics could live and work together in groups.
Could they hold together and function effectively? This was the
unsolved problem. Corresponding with thousands of groups about
their problems became a chief occupation of the New York
headquarters.
By 1946, however, it had
already become possible to draw sound conclusions about the
kinds of attitude, practice and function that would best suit
A.A.’s purpose. Those principles, which had emerged from
strenuous group experience, were codified by Bill in what are
today the Twelve Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous. By 1950,
the earlier chaos had largely disappeared. A successful formula
for A.A. unity and functioning had been achieved and put into
practice. (See Page 9.)
During this hectic ten-year
period, Dr. Bob devoted himself to the question of hospital care
for alcoholics, and to their indoctrination with A.A.
principles. Large numbers of alcoholics flocked to Akron to
receive hospital care at St. Thomas, a Catholic hospital. Dr.
Bob became a member of its staff. Subsequently, he and the
remarkable Sister M. Ignatia, also of the staff, cared for and
brought A.A. to some 5,000 sufferers. After Dr. Bob’s death in
1950, Sister Ignatia continued to work at Cleveland’s Charity
Hospital, where she was assisted by the local groups and where
10,000 more sufferers first found A.A. This set a fine example
of hospitalization wherein A.A. could cooperate with both
medicine and religion.
In this same year of 1950,
A.A. held its first International Convention at Cleveland.
There, Dr. Bob made his last appearance and keyed his final talk
to the need of keeping A.A. simple. Together with all present,
he saw the Twelve Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous
enthusiastically adopted for the permanent use of the A.A.
Fellowship throughout the world. (He died on November 16, 1950.)
The following year witnessed
still another significant event. The New York office had greatly
expanded its activities, and these now consisted of public
relations, advice to new groups, services to hospitals, prisons,
Loners, and Internationalists, and cooperation with other
agencies in the alcoholism field. The headquarters was also
publishing "standard" A.A. books and pamphlets, and it
supervised their translation into other tongues. Our
international magazine, the A.A. Grapevine, had achieved a large
circulation. These and many other activities had become
indispensable for A.A. as a whole.
Nevertheless, these vital
services were still in the hands of an isolated board of
trustees, whose only link to the Fellowship had been Bill and
Dr. Bob. As the co-founders had foreseen years earlier, it
became absolutely necessary to link A.A.’s world trusteeship
(now the General Service Board of Alcoholics Anonymous) with the
Fellowship that it served. Delegates from all states and
provinces of the U.S. and Canada were forthwith called in. Thus
composed, this body for world service first met in 1951. Despite
earlier misgivings, the gathering was a great success. For the
first time, the remote trusteeship became directly accountable
to A.A. as a whole. The A.A. General Service Conference had been
created, and A.A.’s over-all functioning was thereby assured for
the future.
A second International
Convention was held in St. Louis in 1955 to celebrate the
Fellowship’s 20th anniversary. The General Service Conference
had by then completely proved its worth. Here, on behalf of
A.A.’s old-timers, Bill turned the future care and custody of
A.A. over to the Conference and its trustees. At this moment,
the Fellowship went on its own; A.A. had come of age.
Had it not been for A.A.’s
early friends, Alcoholics Anonymous might never have come into
being. And without its host of well-wishers who have since given
of their time and effort — particularly those friends of
medicine, religion, and world communications — A.A. could never
have grown and prospered. The Fellowship here records its
constant gratitude.
It was on January 24, 1971,
that Bill, a victim of pneumonia, died in Miami Beach, Florida,
where — seven months earlier — he had delivered at the 35th
Anniversary International Convention what proved to be his last
words to fellow A.A.s: "God bless you and Alcoholics Anonymous
forever."
Since then, A.A. has become
truly global, and this has revealed that A.A.’s way of life can
today transcend most barriers of race, creed and language. A
World Service Meeting, started in 1969, has been held biennially
since 1972. Its locations alternate between New York and
overseas. It has met in London, England; Helsinki, Finland; San
Juan del Rio, Mexico; Guatemala City, Guatemala; Munich,
Germany; Cartagena, Colombia; Auckland, New Zealand; and Oviedo,
Spain.
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