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The primary purpose of Alcoholics Anonymous is "to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety." An earlier group, the Washingtonians, fell apart when it tried to branch out to different goals, which A.A. has tried to avoid. (See A.A.'s Twelve Traditions as detailed in the A.A. "Big Book" http://www.aa.org/bigbookonline/ Alcoholics Anonymous .)
There is some controversy over the A.A. approach of abstinence as a goal as opposed to other programs which aim for moderation. [1]
Although phrases and ideas drawn from Protestant Christianity are used in A.A. literature and at A.A. meetings, the organization doesn't promote any particular religion, and it has worked for adherents of many faiths, including Buddhists, Jews and Muslims. Nevertheless, since it suggests that the recovering alcoholic should ask for help from a "Higher Power," some atheists find themselves unable to accept the Twelve Steps and instead seek out secular alternatives. A.A. has been deemed a religious organization by a United States federal court. (see "A.A., Religion and the Law" below.)
A.A. was started by two alcoholics who first met on May 12, 1935. One was Bill WilsonWilliam Griffith Wilson (commonly known as Bill Wilson or "Bill W. was a co-founder of the self-help group Alcoholics Anonymous. The other co-founder was Dr. Bob Smith. Wilson was born on 26 November 1895 in East Dorset, Vermont. After a troubled childhoo (William Griffith Wilson), a New York stockbroker; the other was fellow Oxford Group (later, Moral Rearmament) member Dr. Bob SmithBob Smith (Robert Holbrook Smith, b. 8 August 1879 d. 16 November 1950) was a medical doctor and surgeon from Akron, Ohio, also known as Dr Bob . He founded the self-help movement Alcoholics Anonymous with Bill Wilson, in 1935. See also Alcoholics Anonymo (Robert Holbrook Smith), a medical doctor and surgeon from Akron, OhioAkron is located in Summit County, Ohio. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 217,074. It is the largest city in Summit County and is the county seat 6. Akron is the 88th largest city in the United States and is the 5th largest city i.
Wilson had been sober for some months when he met Smith, although he had struggled with sobriety for years. In that time he had made several important discoveries about his own alcoholism.
Firstly he had learned from a New York alcoholism specialist, Dr. William Duncan SilkworthWilliam Duncan Silkworth M. 1873?1951). American medical doctor and specialist in the treatment of alcoholism. He was Director of the Towns Hospital in New York City in the 1930s, during which time Bill Wilson, a future co-founder of the self-help movemen, that alcoholism was not simply a moral weakness. Silkworth told Wilson, during one of Wilson's admissions to his drying-out clinic, that alcoholism had a pathological disease-like character. He told Wilson that, in his view, alcoholism was akin to an allergy, in the sense that it produced abnormal reactions to alcohol that were not observed in non-alcoholic drinkers; he called these reactions a "phenomenon of craving" -- once started drinking, the alcoholic finds it very difficult to stop. In addition, Dr. Silkworth told Wilson that alcoholics had a mental obsession that gave them reasons to return to alcohol after periods of sobriety, even knowing that they would then develop overwhelming cravings. This "double whammy" (as he called it) meant that the alcoholic could not stop once started, and could not stop from starting again. This explained the enormous recidivism rate of alcoholics.
Wilson also discovered that some alcoholics were able to recover on a spiritualSpirituality may include belief in supernatural powers, as in religion, but the emphasis is on experience. What is referred to as "religion" and what is referred to as "spirituality" are often the same. In recent years, "spirituality" has often carried co basis. This approach had been used by one of Wilson's old drinking buddies, Ebby Thatcher, to get sober. Thatcher in turn had learned about the spiritual approach from Roland H., an American alcoholic who had undergone treatment with the famous Swiss psychoanalyst Dr. Carl JungCarl Gustav Jung ( July 26, 1875 June 6, 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and founder of the neopsychoanalytic school of psychology. At university, he was a student of Krafft-Ebing. For a time, Jung was Freud's heir-apparent in the psychoanalytic school.. After a prolonged and unsuccessful period of therapy, Jung told Roland that his case, like that of most alcoholics, was nigh on hopeless. Roland H. was horrified and begged Jung to tell him anything at all that might help. Jung replied there was only one hope for alcoholics: a dramatic and profound spiritual conversion. He said that history had recorded isolated examples of recovery that were due solely to the spiritual conversion of the alcoholic. His final advice to Roland H. was to seek out a conversion experience.
Roland H. returned to America and found a means to a spiritual awakeningA spiritual awakening is an eventual or even sudden realization that one has a connection with an entity or entities beyond the immediate and physical world which our five senses detect. Typically, such an entity is considered a "God" or other likeness to through the Oxford Group, a self-styled first-Century Christian movement that advocated finding God through moral inventory, confession of defects, restitution, reliance upon their God, and helping others. It appeared that a spiritual awakening would relieve alcoholics of the mental obsession that kept sending them back to alcoholism after periods of sobriety.
Finally, Wilson found that by sharing his personal alcoholic experience with other alcoholics, his own sobriety seemed to grow stronger and it helped the other person as well.
These were the ideas that he presented to Smith, who had been struggling with his own chronic drinking addiction. (Smith's last drink is said to have been June 10, 1935, and that is considered within A.A. to be the date of the founding of A.A.) The two struck up a solid friendship and together they put Wilson's discoveries into practice. Their first publication in 1939, Alcoholics Anonymous, the first 164 pages of which have remained virtually unchanged since then, has been a perennial best-seller.
The AA Grapevine is the international journal of Alcoholics Anonymous. It is written, edited, illustrated, and read by A.A. members and others interested in the A.A. program of recovery from the disease of alcoholism.
The growth of A.A., especially in its early years, was striking. In 2002, the General Service Office of Alcoholics Anonymous reported more than 100,000 A.A. groups in 150 countries, with a combined total membership of approximately two million alcoholics.
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