What is AA's relationship with the
community?
Answer
Now that our methods and results are better
known we are receiving splendid cooperation
everywhere from clergymen, doctors,
employers, editors - in fact, from whole
communities. While there is still a
well-understood reluctance on the part of
city and private hospitals to admit
alcoholic patients, we are pleased to report
a great improvement in this direction. But
we are still very far, in most places, from
having anything like adequate hospital
accommodations.
Over and above this traditional activity, we
may give some counsel to those who work upon
various aspects of the total problem. It may
be possible that our experience fits us for
a special task. Writing of Alcoholics
Anonymous, Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick once
said: "Gothic Cathedral windows are not the
sole thing which can be seen from within.
Alcoholism is another. All outside views are
clouded and unsure." Thus, with our inside
view - one best seen by those drinkers who
have suffered from alcoholism - we would
help those working on alcohol problems who
have not had our first hand experience.
While we members of Alcoholics Anonymous are
not scientists, our special insight may help
science; while we are of all religions and
sometimes none, we can assist clergymen;
although not educators, we shall, perhaps,
aid in clearing away unsure views; not
penologists, we do help in prison work; not
a business or organization, we nevertheless
advise employers; not sociologists, we
constantly serve families, friends and
communities; not prosecutors or judges, we
try to promote understanding and justice;
emphatically not doctors, we do minister to
the sick. Taking no side on controversial
questions, we may sometimes mediate
fruitless antagonism, which have so often
blocked effective cooperation among those
who would solve the riddle of the alcoholic.
These are the activities and aspirations of
thousands of the members of Alcoholics
Anonymous. While our organization as a whole
has but one aim - to help the alcoholic who
wishes to recover - there are a few of us,
indeed, who as individuals do not wish to
meet some of the broader responsibilities
for which we may be especially fitted.
(Quart. J. Stud. Alc., Vol.6, Sept., 1945).
.
Another Answer
Many an alcoholic is now sent to A.A. by his
own psychiatrist. Relieved of his drinking,
he returns to the doctor a far easier
subject. Practically every alcoholic's wife
has become, to a degree, his possessive
mother. Most alcoholic women, if they still
have a husband, live with a baffled father.
This sometimes spells trouble aplenty. We
AA's certainly ought to know! So, gentlemen,
here is a big problem right up your alley.
We of A.A. try to be aware that we may never
touch but a segment of the total alcohol
problem. We try to remember that our growing
success may prove to be a heady wine; will
you men and women of medicine be our
partners; physicians wielding well your
invisible scalpels; workers all, in our
common cause? We like to think Alcoholics
Anonymous a middle ground between medicine
and religion, the missing catalyst of a new
synthesis. This to the end that millions who
still suffer may presently issue from their
darkness into the light of day! (Amer. J.
Psychiat., Vol. 106, 1949) .
Another Answer
Alcoholics Anonymous once stood in no-mans
land between medicine and religion.
Religionists thought we were unorthodox;
medicine thought we were totally
unscientific. The last decade brought a
great change in this respect. Clerics of
every denomination declare that, while A.A.
contains no shred of dogma, it has an
impeccable spiritual basis, quite acceptable
to men of all creeds, even the agnostic
himself. You gentlemen of medicine also
observe that AA is psychiatrically sound so
far as it goes and that A.A. refers all
bodily ills of its membership to your
profession. Therefore, it is now clear that
Alcoholics Anonymous is a synthetic
construct which draws upon three sources,
namely, medical science, religion and its
own particular experience. Withdraw one of
these supports and its platform of stability
falls to earth as a farmer's three-legged
milk stool with one leg chopped off. That
you have invited me, an A.A. member, to sit
in your councils today is a happy token of
that fact, for which our society is deeply
grateful.
What, then, has Alcoholics Anonymous
contributed as third partner of the recovery
synthesis which promises so much to
sufferers everywhere? Does Alcoholics
Anonymous contain any new principles?
Strictly speaking it does not. A.A. merely
relates the alcoholic to the tested truths
in a brand new way. He is now able to accept
them where he couldn't before. Now he has a
concrete program of action and the
understanding support of a successful
society of his fellows in which he carries
that out. In all probability, these are the
long-missing links in the recovery chain.
(N.Y. State J. Med., Vol. 50, July 1950)
