Alcoholics Anonymous has been called the greatest
spiritual movement of the 20th Century. Today it turned
80-years-old. On June 10, 1935 a stock speculator and long-time suffering
alcoholic named Bill Wilson found himself in Akron, Ohio. Bill had been
struggling with alcoholism for years. The term alcoholism wasn’t even used back
then as this addiction was not thought of as a disease. Instead people who
could not stop drinking were thought to be of an immoral nature with a lack of
will power. It wasn’t until Bill found himself in Towns Hospital under the care
of Dr. William Silkworth that he first heard his malady described as a disease.
Silkworth had been treating alcoholics for decades and came to the conclusion
that certain people had a physical reaction, call it an allergy, when they took
a drink. Once a drink was taken that individual could not stop drinking under
their own will power. He would drink until he passed out, was hand-cuffed, ran
out of money, etc. That would start Bill’s journey in seeking out a way to put
this, “hopeless condition of mind and body” (Alcoholics Anonymous, 1939) into
remission.
Bill having been unable to remain sober through
self-knowledge alone would run into an old friend of his named Ebby Thatcher.
Ebby had been a long-time drinking partner of Bill’s but had found a way to
remain sober. One night Ebby showed up to Bill’s house and upon declining a
drink began to tell Bill how he had found God through an organization called
The Oxford Group. Bill was skeptical of the whole “God” thing until Ebby told
Bill to find a God (Higher Power if you will) of his own understanding. During
Bill’s last stint at Towns Hospital he had a spiritual awakening that allowed
him to have the obsession of alcohol removed from him. Bill learned that he
would have to maintain a type of “spiritual maintenance” (Alcoholics Anonymous,
1939), by helping others suffering from the same malady, to keep his sobriety.
Bill began to try to help those he deemed doomed to a life of alcoholism by
preaching to them about his spiritual awakening. Although he didn’t get anyone
sober he found he remained sober. Bill would later come to realize that
preaching to people wasn’t the way to share. He found that if he told about his
experience with alcohol and how it almost killed him that sufferers of the
disease would listen. This was the catalyst of the story telling feature of AA.
Telling other alcoholics our experience, strength and hope would become
integral to remaining sober. Through our experience we would gain strength and
through our strength we would gain hope.
So there is Bill in 1935 in Akron, Ohio. Having
gained back the trust of a few businessmen he was down there doing a deal. The
deal fell apart and Bill found himself craving a drink. He realized he had to
talk to another drunk. After a series of phone calls asking for a drunk to talk
to he was directed to the home of Dr. Bob Smith.
Dr. Bob was a notorious drunk in the area and a
member of the Oxford Group. He had tried everything to get sober and only
agreed to talk to Bill to placate his wife. He told his wife Anne that he would
give Bill 20 minutes at most. When Bill was introduced to Dr. Bob he noticed Bob
shaking badly and suggested Bob have a drink. This came as quite the surprise to
Bob. Bill proceeded not to preach to Dr. Bob but too relate to him his story. A
meeting that was to last 20 minutes stretched on into the night. Bill would
remain in Akron, staying at Dr. Bob and Anne Smith’s house, for months. Bill
and Dr. Bob began to work on a strategy to help the still suffering alcoholic.
Bob would have one relapse taking his last drink on June 10 thus setting the
official date of the forming of Alcoholics Anonymous.
This movement did not have a name until the book
Alcoholics Anonymous was published in 1939. Today this book is commonly
referred to as the Big Book. The Big Book was a basic text outlining how the
first 100 members of Alcoholics Anonymous became sober. The Fellowship of AA
would take six steps from the Oxford Group and turn them into 12. Dr. Bob
simplified these steps into three lines:
Trust God
Clean House
Help Others
Today Alcoholics Anonymous has a
membership numbering in the millions. The story is much more detailed and whole
books have been written about it.
I
am grateful to Alcoholics Anonymous for saving my life. I came into the rooms
of AA in a state of, “pitiful, incomprehensible, demoralization” (Alcoholics
Anonymous, 1939) not wanting to live while drinking but not being able to live
without it. I left my first AA meeting with a spark of hope that there was a
better life to be had. By following in the footsteps of Bill and Bob, and those
who came after, I have found that life, but for the grace of God.
Dave
the Dude
