AA meeting sign

Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is an international mutual aid movement which was founded in 1935 by Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith (Bill W. and Dr. Bob) in Akron, Ohio. AA says its "primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics achieve sobriety".^[1][2] With other early members, Wilson and Smith developed AA's Twelve Step program of spiritual and character development. AA's Twelve Traditions were introduced in 1946 to help AA stabilize and grow. The Traditions recommend that members and groups remain anonymous in public media, altruistically help other alcoholics and include all who wish to stop drinking. The Traditions also recommend that AA members acting on behalf of the fellowship steer clear of dogma, governing hierarchies and involvement in public issues. Subsequent fellowships such as Narcotics Anonymous have adopted and adapted the Twelve Steps and the Twelve Traditions to their respective primary purposes.^[3][4]

AA generally avoids discussing the medical nature of alcoholism; nonetheless AA is regarded as a proponent and popularizer of the disease theory of alcoholism.^[3][5][6][7] The American Psychiatric Association has recommended sustained treatment in conjunction with AA's program, or similar community resources, for chronic alcoholics unresponsive to brief treatment.^[8] AA's data states that 64% drop out of AA in their first year,^[9][10] but its program is credited with helping many alcoholics achieve and maintain sobriety.^[11]

The first female member Florence Rankin joined AA in 1936,^{[citation needed]} and the first non-Protestant member, a Roman Catholic, joined in 1939.^[12] AA membership has since spread "across diverse cultures holding different beliefs and values", including geopolitical areas resistant to grassroot movements.^[13] AA says it has more than 2 million members.

AA's name derived from its first book, informally called "The Big Book", originally titled Alcoholics Anonymous: The Story of How More Than One Hundred Men Have Recovered From Alcoholism

Beginnings[link]

AA sprang from The Oxford Group, a non-denominational movement modeled after first-century Christianity.^[14] Most Group members ("Groupers") were not concerned with sobriety, but some, such as Ebby Thacher, believed the Group was a critical aid in staying sober. Following the Group's evangelical bent, Thacher sought out former drinking buddy Bill Wilson to tell him he was sober because he had "got religion." Thacher also told Wilson he could get sober too if he set aside his objections to religion and form a personal conception of God, "another power" or "higher power."^[15][16][17]

Feeling a "kinship of common suffering" and struck that Thacher was sober, Wilson attended his first Group gathering though he was drunk. Within days Wilson admitted himself for the fourth time to the Charles B. Towns Hospital after stopping on the way to drink four beers – the last time Wilson got drunk. Under the care of Dr. William Duncan Silkworth (an early benefactor of A.A.), Wilson detox included the deliriant belladonna.^[18] At the hospital in a state of despair Wilson experienced a bright flash of light which he felt to be God revealing himself.^[19]

After discharging from the hospital, Wilson joined the Oxford Group and recruited other alcoholics to the Group. Wilson's early efforts to help others become sober were ineffective, prompting Dr. Silkworth to suggest that Wilson place less stress on religion and on more on "the science" of treating alcoholism. Wilson's first success came during a business trip to Akron, Ohio, where he was introduced to Dr. Robert Smith, a surgeon and Oxford Group member who was unable to stay sober. After thirty days of working with Wilson, Smith drank his last drink on June 10, 1935, the date marked by AA for its anniversaries.^[19][20]

While Wilson and Smith credited their sustained sobriety to working with alcoholics under the auspices of the Oxford Group, a Group associate pastor sermonized against Wilson and his alcoholic Groupers for forming a "secret, ashamed sub-group" engaged in "divergent works".^[20] By 1937 Wilson separated from the Oxford Group. AA historian Ernest Kurtz explained the split:^[21]

more and more, Bill discovered that new adherents could get sober by believing in each other and in the strength of this group. Men [no women were members yet] who had proven over and over again, by extremely painful experience, that they could not get sober on their own had somehow become more powerful when two or three of them worked on their common problem. This, then—whatever it was that occurred among them—was what they could accept as a power greater than themselves. They did not need the Oxford Group.

In 1955 Wilson acknowledged AA's debt, saying "The Oxford Groupers had clearly shown us what to do. And just as importantly, we learned from them what not to do." Among the Oxford Group practices AA retained were informal gatherings, a "changed-life" developed through "stages", and working with others for no material gain. AA's analogs for these are meetings, "the steps", and sponsorship. One legacy not drawn from the Group was anonymity, which came about due to AA wishing to avoid the publicity-seeking practices of the Oxford Group and to not promote, Wilson said, "erratic public characters who through broken anonymity might get drunk and destroy confidence in us."^[22]

The Big Book, the Twelve Steps and the Twelve Traditions[link]

In 1937, Wilson and Smith could count 40 alcoholic men they had helped to get sober, and two years later they counted 100 members, including one woman. To promote the fellowship, Wilson and other members wrote the initially-titled book, Alcoholics Anonymous: The Story of How More Than One Hundred Men Have Recovered from Alcoholism,^[23] from which AA drew its name. Informally known as "The Big Book" (with its first 164 pages virtually unchanged since the 1939 edition), it suggests a twelve-step program in which members admit that they are powerless over alcohol and need help from a "higher power"; seek guidance and strength through prayer and meditation from God or Higher Power of their own understanding; take a moral inventory with care to include resentments; list and become ready to remove character defects; list and make amends to those harmed, and then try to help other alcoholics recover. The second half of the book, "Personal Stories" (subject to additions, removal and retitling in subsequent editions), is made of AA members' redemptive autobiographical sketches.

In 1941, interviews on American radio and favorable articles in US magazines, including a piece by Jack Alexander in The Saturday Evening Post, led to increased book sales and membership.^[24] By 1946, as the growing fellowship quarreled over structure, purpose, and authority, as well as finances and publicity, Wilson began to form and promote what became known as AA's Twelve Traditions, guidelines for an altruistic, unaffiliated, non-coercive, and non-hierarchical structure that limited AA's purpose to only helping alcoholics on a non-professional level while shunning publicity. Eventually he gained formal adoption and inclusion of the Twelve Traditions in all future editions of the Big Book.^[3] At the 1955 St. Louis convention in Missouri, Wilson relinquished stewardship of AA to the General Service Conference,^[25] as AA grew to millions of members internationally.^[26]

Organization and finances[link]

A regional service center for Alcoholics Anonymous.

AA says it is "not organized in the formal or political sense",^[26] and Bill Wilson called it a "benign anarchy".^[27] In Ireland, Shane Butler said that AA “looks like it couldn’t survive as there’s no leadership or top-level telling local cumanns what to do, but it has worked and proved itself extremely robust.” Butler attributed this to "AA’s 'inverted pyramid' style of governance has helped it to avoid many of the pitfalls that political and religious institutions have encountered since it was established here in 1946."^[28]

In 2006 AA counted 1,867,212 members and 106,202 AA groups worldwide.^[26] The Twelve Traditions informally guide how individual AA groups function, and the Twelve Concepts for World Service guide how the organization is structured globally.^[29]

A member who accepts a service position or an organizing role is a "trusted servant" with terms rotating and limited, typically lasting three months to two years and determined by group vote and the nature of the position. Each group is a self-governing entity with AA World Services acting only in an advisory capacity. AA is served entirely by alcoholics, except for seven "nonalcoholic friends of the fellowship" of the 21-member AA Board of Trustees.^[26]

AA groups are self-supporting, relying on voluntary donations from members to cover expenses.^[26] AA GSO limits contributions to US$3,000 a year.^[30] Above the group level, AA may hire outside professionals for services that require specialized expertise or full-time responsibilities.^[3]

AA receives proceeds from books and literature that constitute more than 50% of the income for its General Service Office (GSO).^[31] Unlike individual groups, the GSO is not self-supporting and maintains a small salaried staff. It also maintains service centers which coordinate activities such as printing literature, responding to public inquiries, and organizing conferences. They are funded by local members and responsible to the AA groups they represent. Other International General Service Offices (Australia, Costa Rica, Russia, etc.) are independent of AA World Services in New York.^[32]

Program[link]

The scope of AA's program is much broader than just abstinence from drinking alcohol.^[33] Its goal is to effect enough change in the alcoholic's thinking "to bring about recovery from alcoholism"^[34] through a spiritual awakening. A spiritual awakening is achieved by following the Twelve Steps,^[35] and sobriety is furthered by volunteering for AA^[36] and regular AA meeting attendance^[37] or contact with AA members.^[35] Members are encouraged to find an experienced fellow alcoholic, called a sponsor, to help them understand and follow the AA program. The sponsor should preferably have experience of all twelve of the steps, be the same gender as the sponsored person, and refrain from imposing personal views on the sponsored person.^[38] Following the helper therapy principle, sponsors in AA benefit as much, if not more, from their relationship than do those they sponsor. Helping behaviors correlate with increased abstinence and lower probabilities of binge drinking.^[39]

AA's program is an inheritor of Counter-Enlightenment philosophy. AA shares the view that acceptance of one's inherent limitations is critical to finding one's proper place among other humans and God. Such ideas are described as "Counter-Enlightenment" because they are contrary to the Enlightenment's ideal that humans have the capacity to make their lives and societies a heaven on earth using their own power and reason.^[33]

Nevertheless, sociologists David Rudy and Arthur Greil evaluated AA's literature and observed AA meetings for sixteen months. They note that although AA's ideology denies AA is religious in nature, for an AA member to remain sober a high level of commitment is necessary. This commitment is facilitated by a change in the member's world view. To help members stay sober AA must, they argue, provide an all-encompassing world view while creating and sustaining an atmosphere of transcendence in the organization. To be all-encompassing AA's ideology places an emphasis on tolerance rather than on a narrow religious world view that could make the organization unpalatable to potential members and thereby limit its effectiveness. AA's emphasis on the spiritual nature of its program, however, is necessary to institutionalize a feeling of transcendence. A tension results from the risk that the necessity of transcendence, if taken too literally, would compromise AA's efforts to maintain a broad appeal. As this tension is an integral part of AA, Rudy and Greil argue that AA is best described as a quasi-religious organization.^[40]

Meetings[link]

AA meetings are "quasi-ritualized therapeutic sessions run by and for, alcoholics".^[41] They are usually informal and often feature discussions. Local AA directories list a variety of weekly meetings. Those listed as "closed" are only for those with "a desire to stop drinking",^[3] while "open" meetings are available to anyone. At speaker meetings one or two members tell their stories, while discussion meetings allocate the most time for general discussion. Some meetings are devoted to studying and discussing the AA literature. Except for men's and women's meetings, most meetings targeting specific demographics (including newcomers, gays, and young people) do not exclude other alcoholics. While AA has pamphlets that suggest meeting formats,^[42][43] groups have the autonomy to hold and conduct meetings as they wish "except in matters affecting other groups or A.A. as a whole".^[3] Different cultures affect ritual aspects of meetings, but around the world "many particularities of the AA meeting format can be observed at almost any A.A. gathering".^[44]

Confidentiality[link]

US courts have not extended the status of privileged communication, such as that enjoyed by clergy and lawyers, to AA related communications between members.^[45][46]

Spirituality[link]

A study found a robust association between an increase in attendance to AA meetings with increased spirituality and a decrease in the frequency and intensity of alcohol use over time. The research also found that AA was effective for agnostics and atheists. The authors concluded that though spirituality is an important mechanism of behavioral change for alcoholics, it is not the only means used.^[47]

Disease concept of alcoholism[link]

More informally than not, AA's membership has helped popularize the disease concept of alcoholism, though AA officially has had no part in the development of such postulates which had appeared as early as the late eighteenth century.^[48] Though AA initially avoided the term "disease", in 1973 conference-approved literature categorically stated that "we had the disease of alcoholism."^[49] Regardless of official positions, from AA's inception most members have believed alcoholism to be a disease.^[7]

Though cautious regarding the medical nature of alcoholism, AA has let others voice opinions. The Big Book states "we are told that alcoholism "is an illness which only a spiritual experience will conquer." Ernest Kurtz says this is "The closest the book Alcoholics Anonymous comes to a definition of alcoholism."^[7] In his introduction to The Big Book, non-member Dr. William Silkworth said those unable to moderate their drinking have an allergy. Addressing the allergy concept, AA said "The doctor’s theory that we have an allergy to alcohol interests us. As laymen, our opinion as to its soundness may, of course, mean little."^[6] AA later acknowledged that "alcoholism is not a true allergy, the experts now inform us."^[50] Wilson explained in 1960 why AA had refrained from using the term "disease":

We AAs have never called alcoholism a disease because, technically speaking, it is not a disease entity. For example, there is no such thing as heart disease. Instead there are many separate heart ailments or combinations of them. It is something like that with alcoholism. Therefore, we did not wish to get in wrong with the medical profession by pronouncing alcoholism a disease entity. Hence, we have always called it an illness or a malady – a far safer term for us to use.^[51]

Canadian and United States demographics[link]

AA's New York General Service Office regularly surveys AA members in North America. Its 2004 survey of over 7,500 members in Canada and the United States concluded that, in North America, AA members who responded to the survey were 65% male and 35% female. Average member sobriety is eight years with 36% sober more than ten years, 14% sober from five to ten years, 24% sober from one to five years, and 26% sober less than one year. Before coming to AA, 64% of members received some type of treatment or counseling, such as medical, psychological, or spiritual. After coming to AA, 65% received outside treatment or counseling, and 84% of those members said that that outside help played an important part in their recovery. The same survey showed that AA received 11% of its membership from court ordered attendance.^[52]

Effectiveness[link]

Research limitations[link]

AA tends to polarize observers into believers and non-believers,^[53] and discussion of AA often creates controversy rather than objective reflection.^[54] Moreover, a randomized study of AA is difficult: AA members are not randomly selected from the population of chronic alcoholics, with the possible exception of those who are mandated by courts to attend AA meetings; they are instead self-selected.^[55] There are two opposing types of self-selection bias: (1) drinkers may be motivated to stop drinking before they participate in AA (2) AA may attract the more severe and difficult cases.^[56] Controlled experiments with AA versus non-AA subjects are also difficult because AA is so easily accessible. Twelve-step groups, like AA, are not conducive to probability sampling of members. Research on AA is therefore susceptible to sampling bias.^[57]

Studies[link]

Studies of AA's efficacy have produced inconsistent results. While some studies have suggested an association between AA attendance and increased abstinence or other positive outcomes,^{[58][59][60][61][62][63]} other studies have not.^{[64][65][66][67][68]} A Cochrane Review of eight studies, published between 1967 and 2005, measuring the effectiveness of AA, found "no experimental studies unequivocally demonstrated the effectiveness of AA" in treating alcoholism, based on a meta-analysis of the results of eight trials involving a total of 3,417 individuals. To determine further the effectiveness of AA, the authors suggested that more studies comparing treatment outcomes with control groups were necessary.^[69]

Survey results[link]

Every third year since 1968, AA has issued a pamphlet summarizing its latest triennial survey of meeting attendants. Additional published comments and analysis for academics and professionals have supplemented the survey results from 1970 through 1990.^[10] The 1990 commentary evaluated data of triennial surveys from 1977 through 1989 and found that one quarter (26%) of those who first attend an AA meeting are still attending after one year. Furthermore, nearly one third (31.5%) leave the program after one month, and by the end of the third month, over half (52.6%) leave.^[70] After the first year, the rate of attrition slows. Only those in the first year were recorded by month.^[70] About 40% of the members sober for less than a year will remain another year. About 80% of those sober more than one year, but less than five years will remain sober and active in the fellowship another year. About 90% of the members sober five years or more will remain sober and active in the fellowship another year. Those who remained sober outside the fellowship could not be calculated using the survey results.^[70]

Health-care costs[link]

As a volunteer-supported program, AA is free of charge. This contrasts with treatments for alcoholism such as inpatient treatment, drug therapy, psychotherapy and cognitive-based therapy. Research has found that the institutional use of AA in certain circumstances has reduced health-care expenditures by 45%.^[61]

Relationship with institutions[link]

Prisons[link]

In the United States and Canada AA meetings are held in hundreds of correctional facilities. The AA General Service Office has published a workbook with detailed recommendations for methods of approaching correctional-facility officials with the intent of developing an in-prison AA program.^[71] In addition, AA publishes a variety of pamphlets specifically for the incarcerated alcoholic.^[72] Additionally, the AA General Service Office provides a pamphlet with guidelines for members working with incarcerated alcoholics.^[73]

United States Court rulings[link]

United States courts have ruled that inmates, parolees, and probationers cannot be ordered to attend AA. Though AA itself was not deemed a religion, it was ruled that it contained enough religious components (variously described in GRIFFIN v. COUGHLIN below as, inter alia, "religion", "religious activity", "religious exercise") to make coerced attendance at AA meetings a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the constitution.^[74][75] In September 2007, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit stated that a parole office can be sued for ordering a parolee to attend AA.^[76][77]

American treatment industry[link]

In 1949 the Hazelden treatment center was founded by AA members, and since then many alcoholic rehabilitation clinics have often incorporated AA's precepts into their treatment programs.^[78] 31% of AA's membership results from treatment centers referrals.^[52]

United Kingdom treatment industry[link]

A cross-sectional survey of substance-misuse treatment providers in the West Midlands found fewer than 10% integrated twelve-step methods in their practice and only a third felt their consumers were suited for Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous membership. Less than half were likely to recommend self-help groups to their clients. Providers with nursing qualification were more likely to make such referrals than those without. A statistically significant correlation was found between providers' self-reported level of spirituality and their likelihood of recommending AA or NA.^[79]

Criticism[link]

Moderation or abstinence[link]

For more details on this topic, see Alcoholism: Management

Stanton Peele argued that some AA groups apply the disease model to all problem drinkers, whether or not they are "full-blown" alcoholics.^[80] Along with Nancy Shute, Peele has advocated that besides AA, other options should be available to problem drinkers who can manage their drinking with the right treatment.^[81] The Big Book, however, acknowledges "moderate drinkers" and "a certain type of hard drinker" are able to stop or moderate their drinking. The Big Book suggests no program for these drinkers, but instead seeks to help drinkers without "power of choice in drink."^[82]

Cultural identity[link]

One review of AA warned of detrimental iatrogenic effects of twelve-step philosophy and concluded that AA uses many methods that are also used by cults.^[83] A subsequent study concluded, however, that AA's program bore little resemblance to religious cults because the techniques used appeared beneficial.^[84] Another study found that the AA program's focus on admission of having a problem increases deviant stigma and strips members of their previous cultural identity, replacing it with the deviant identity.^[85] A survey of group members, however, found they had a bicultural identity and saw AA's program as a complement to their other national, ethnic, and religious cultures.^[86]

Other criticisms[link]

• "Thirteenth-stepping" is a pejorative term for AA members approaching new members for dates or sex. The Journal of Addiction Nursing reported that 50% of the women that participated in a survey (55 in all) experienced 13-stepping behavior from others.^[87] AA's pamphlet on sponorship suggests that men be sponsored by men and women be sponsored by women.^[88]

• In 1964 Arthur H. Cain – by his own count – had attended over 500 AA meetings since 1947. Cain insisted that "I do not suggest for a moment that a single A.A. quit the fellowship. On the contrary, I strongly urge sticking with it. To anyone who is having trouble with alcohol I say: try A.A. first; it's the answer for most people". Even so Cain thought that AA had become the domain of irreligious misfits "Dogmatic and opinionated in their nonbeliefs", who scorned other societies such as the Kiwanis Club. Cain said AA had come to rely heavily on dogmatic slogans and the group. Without referencing or fashioning a definition of the term, Cain called AA a "cult" and "a hindrance to research, psychiatry, and to many alcoholics who need a different kind of help".^[89]

[edit] Literature

Alcoholics Anonymous publishes several books, reports, pamphlets and other media, including a periodical known as the AA Grapevine.^[90] Two books are used primarily: Alcoholics Anonymous (the "Big Book") and Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, the latter explaining AA's fundamental principles in depth.

• Alcoholics Anonymous (June 1, 1976). Alcoholics Anonymous. Alcoholics Anonymous World Services. ISBN 0-916856-59-3. OCLC 2353981. http://www.aa.org/bigbookonline/. 
• Alcoholics Anonymous (February 10, 2002). Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions. Alcoholics Anonymous World Services. ISBN 0-916856-01-1. OCLC 13572433. 
• "Index". The A.A. Grapevine (Alcoholics Anonymous). ISSN 0362-2584. OCLC 50379271. http://www.aagrapevine.org/index.php. 

AA in film[link]

Films about Alcoholic Anonymous[link]

• My Name Is Bill W. – dramatized biography of co-founder Bill Wilson.
• When Love Is Not Enough: The Lois Wilson Story – a 2010 film about the wife of founder Bill Wilson, and the beginnings of Alcoholics Anonymous and Al-Anon.
• Bill W. – a 2011 biographical documentary film that tells the story of Bill Wilson using interviews, recreations, and rare archival material.^[91][92]

Films where primary plot line includes AA[link]

• When a Man Loves a Woman – an airline pilot's wife attends AA meetings in a residential treatment facility
• Clean and Sober – a cocaine addict visits an AA meeting to get a sponsor
• Days of Wine and Roses – a 1962 film about a married couple struggling with alcoholism. Jack Lemmon's character attends an AA meeting in the film.
• Drunks – a 1995 film starring Richard Lewis as an alcoholic who leaves an AA meeting and relapses. The film cuts back and forth between his eventual relapse and the other meeting attendants.
• Come Back, Little Sheba – A 1952 film based on a play of the same title about a loveless marriage where the husband played by Burt Lancaster is an alcoholic who gets help from 2 members of the local AA chapter. A 1977 TV drama was also based on the play.
• I'll Cry Tomorrow – A 1955 film about singer Lillian Roth played by Susan Hayward who goes to AA to help her stop drinking.
• You Kill Me - a 2007 crime-comedy film starring Ben Kingsley as a mob hit man with a drinking problem who is forced to accept a job at a mortuary and go to AA meetings, where he explains he wants to be free of his drinking problem because it is affecting his ability to kill effectively.

Minor references to AA within film[link]

• The Simpsons Movie - Barney and a few other people were drinking coffee at the local AA when a book is thrown in from the book club.
• The Answer Man – AA meeting at 0:59 ("burning desire", "newcomer")

Television episodes and made-for-TV dramas[link]

• My Zinc Bed – A 2008 TV Drama, the antagonist challenges the protagonist Paul, an AA member, that AA makes Paul dependant on the group.
• "Knots Landing" - the two-part Season One finale Bottom Of The Bottle (1980) is an account of Gary Ewing's relapse into alcoholism, culminating in his attendance at an AA meeting. His attendance of AA meetings is referenced several times over the course of the series, and we actually see his attendance at meetings and his relationship with his sponsor and potential sponsee in the second season.
• The Morning After – a 1974 made for television movie starring Dick van Dyke as a successful business and family man whose drinking progressively worsens to the point of no control.
• "Desperate Housewives"*(Starting season 2) Bree Van de Kamp has a drinking problem, after falling down in the yard drunk (among other incidents) she decides to attend AA meetings

See also[link]

• Addiction recovery groups
• Alcoholism
• List of twelve-step groups
• Recovery model
• Self-help groups for mental health
• Stepping Stones (home)
• Substance abuse
• Washingtonian movement

References[link]

Notes[link]

• Bill W. (1955). Alcoholics Anonymous: the story of how many thousands of men and women have recovered from alcoholism (2nd ed.). New York, New York: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services. OCLC 269381 
• Bill W. (2002). Alcoholics Anonymous: the story of how many thousands of men and women have recovered from alcoholism (4th ed.). New York, New York: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services. ISBN 1-893007-16-2. OCLC 408888189. http://www.aa.org/bigbookonline/. 
• Edwards, Griffith (April 2002). Alcohol: The World's Favorite Drug (1st ed.). Thomas Dunne Books. ISBN 0-312-28387-3. OCLC 48176740. 
• Klaus Mäkelä; World Health Organization. Regional Office for Europe. et al (1996). Alcoholics Anonymous as a mutual-help movement: a study in eight societies. Madison, Wis: University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 0-299-15000-3. OCLC 33242907. 
• Mitchel, Dale (2002). Silkworth: the little doctor who loved drunks. Center City, Minn: Hazelden. ISBN 1-56838-794-6. OCLC 51063745. 
• Speak, Darius (2009). "aaspeak: www.aaspeak.com". online. 
• Pass It on: The Story of Bill Wilson and how the A.A. Message Reached the World. New York, NY: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.. December 1984. ISBN 978-0-916856-12-0. OCLC 12308065. 
• Peele, Stanton (1999). The Diseasing of America: how we allowed recovery zealots and the treatment industry to convince us we are out of control. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. ISBN 0-7879-4643-5. OCLC 39605271. 
• Questions & Answers on Sponsorship. Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. 2005. Archived from the original on 2009-12-15. http://www.webcitation.org/5m2vnLSW0. Retrieved 2009-12-15. 
• Roberson, Nan (1988). Getting Better: Inside Alcoholics Anonymous. London: Macmillan. ISBN 0-688-06869-3. OCLC 17260252. 
• Vaillant, George E. (1995). The Natural History of Alcoholism Revisited. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-60377-X. OCLC 31605790. 
• Wilcox, D.M. (1998). Alcoholic thinking: Language, culture, and belief in Alcoholics Anonymous. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 0-275-96049-8. 

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Alcoholics Anonymous

• AA official website
• AA Great Britain and English speaking continental Europe official website
• A Private Collection Of Images Of AA Material
• Alcoholics Anonymous General Service Office (India)

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Robert Holbrook Smith (August 8, 1879 – November 16, 1950), also known as Dr. Bob, was an American physician and surgeon who co-founded Alcoholics Anonymous with Bill Wilson, more commonly known as Bill W.

He was born in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, where he was raised, to Susan A. Holbrook and Walter Perrin Smith.^[1] As a child he was forced to attend religious services four times a week, with the result that he determined he would never attend religious services when he grew up. He began drinking in college, and early on he noticed that he could recover from drinking bouts quicker and easier than his classmates and that he never had headaches, which caused him to believe he was an alcoholic from the time he began drinking. After graduation from Dartmouth College in 1902, he worked for three years selling hardware in Boston, Chicago, and Montreal and continued drinking heavily. He then returned to school to study medicine. By this time drinking had begun to affect him to the point where he began missing classes. His drinking caused him to leave school, but he returned and passed his examinations for his sophomore year. He transferred to Rush Medical College, but his alcoholism worsened to the point that his father was summoned to try to halt his downward trajectory. But his drinking increased and after a dismal showing during final examinations, the university required that he remain for two extra quarters and remain sober during that time as a condition of graduating.

After graduation Smith became a hospital intern, and for two years he was able to stay busy enough to refrain from heavy drinking. He married Anne Robinson Ripley on January 25, 1915, and opened up his own office in Akron, Ohio, specializing in colorectal surgery and returned to heavy drinking. Recognizing his problem, he checked himself into more than a dozen hospitals and sanitariums in an effort to stop his drinking. He was encouraged by the passage of Prohibition in 1919, but soon discovered that the exemption for medicinal alcohol and bootleggers could supply more than enough to continue his excessive drinking. For the next 17 years his life revolved around how to subvert his wife’s efforts to stop his drinking and obtain the alcohol he craved while trying to hold together a medical practice in order to support his family and his drinking.

In January 1933, Anne Smith attended a lecture by Frank Buchman, the founder of the Oxford Group. For the next two years she and Dr. Smith attended local meeting of the group in an effort to solve his alcoholism, but recovery eluded him until he met Bill Wilson on May 13, 1935. Wilson, an alcoholic who had learned how to stay sober by helping other alcoholics through the Oxford Group in New York, was in Akron on business that had proven unsuccessful and he was in fear of relapsing. Recognizing the danger, he made inquiries about any local alcoholics he could talk to and was referred to Smith by Henrietta Sieberling, one of the leaders of the Akron Oxford Group. After talking to Wilson, Smith stopped drinking and invited Wilson to stay at his home. He relapsed almost a month later while attending a professional convention in Atlantic City. Returning to Akron on June 9, he was given a few drinks by Wilson to avoid delirium tremens. He drank one beer the next morning to settle his nerves so he could perform an operation, which proved to be the last drink he would ever take. The date, June 10, 1935, is celebrated as the anniversary of the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Smith was called the "Prince of Twelfth Steppers" by Wilson because he helped more than 5000 alcoholics before his death. He was able to stay sober from June 10, 1935, until his death in 1950 from colon cancer.

See also[link]

• Jim Burwell
• History of Alcoholics Anonymous
• Bill W. and Dr. Bob

References[link]

• "Dr. Bob's Nightmare". Alcoholics Anonymous: the story of how many thousands of men and women have recovered from alcoholism (4th ed.). New York, New York: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services. 2002. ISBN 1-893007-16-2. OCLC 408888189. http://www.aa.org/bigbookonline/en_drbobnightmare.pdf. Retrieved 14 February 2012. 
• "Anne Ripley Smith". Recovery Universe. http://www.recoveryuniverse.com/AA-Information/anne-ripley-smith. Retrieved 14 February 2012. 

External links[link]

• "Dr Bob's Home" website, Akron, Ohio
• Works by or about Bob Smith (doctor) in libraries (WorldCat catalog)