A Brief History of People, Places, and Times
THE BEGINNINGS
The origin of Alcoholics Anonymous can be traced to the Oxford Group, a
religious movement then popular in the United States and Europe. A
well-to-do Vermonter named Rowland H. had visited the noted Swiss
psychoanalyst Carl Jung in 1932. Rowland was able to admit that he was
"powerless over alcohol" and had decided to attend Oxford Group meetings
in New York City. The meetings were held at Calvary Church, under the
leadership of the Rev. Sam Shoemaker. At these meetings, Rowland met an
old friend and fellow Vermonter, Edwin (Ebby) T., also an alcoholic.
Through the Oxford Group, they were able to keep from drinking through a
formula of self-inventory, admission of wrongs, making amends, using
prayer and meditation, and carrying the message to others who suffer. One
of Ebby's schoolmate friends was Bill W., a Vermonter. Ebby sought out
his old friend at 182 Clinton Street, in Brooklyn, to carry the message
of hope.
Bill W. had been a fair-haired boy on Wall Street, but his promise had
been ruined by continuous and chronic alcoholism. Bill had sought
treatment at Towns Hospital, in Manhattan, under the directorship of Dr.
William Silkworth. Bill learned that his problem was hopeless,
progressive and irreversible--that alcoholism caused him to drink against
his will, and that it took only one drink to activate the illness and set
him off on a binge of compulsive drinking. Now Bill heard Ebby's story
and once again entered Towns Hospital for treatment. On December 11,
1934, Ebby visited Bill at Towns Hospital and shared his spiritual
journey of recovery. After Ebby left, Bill underwent a powerful spiritual
experience. Although not a religious man, Bill experienced the miracle of
freedom from the obsessive need to drink. When he asked Dr. Silkworth
about the experience, the "kindly little doctor who loved drunks" did not
scoff, but encouraged Bill to "hang onto it."
After Bill's release from Towns Hospital, he began attending Oxford Group
meetings. He was buoyed by his contact with other drunks and set out,
with little success, to fix all the drunks in the world.
Eventually, Bill got a toehold in his business. In May of 1935, he found
himself in Akron, Ohio. In a crisis that many alcoholics can relate to,
he found himself alone on a Saturday night in the lobby of the Mayflower
Hotel. He was sorely tempted to join the revelers at the bar, but he
realized that he needed to share his plight with another alcoholic in
order to save himself and protect his sobriety. In an historic decision
for A.A.'s future, Bill turned to the church directory in the hotel lobby
and began telephoning to try to find another drunk. He reached the Rev.
Walter Tunks who might help. One of these, Henrietta Seiberling, though
not an alcoholic, immediately understood Bill's need and told him of Dr.
Bob S., a once-brilliant surgeon about to lose his practice entirely
because of alcoholism. She arranged for Bill to meet Dr. Bob the next
day, Mother's Day, at the gatehouse of the Seiberling estate. Dr. Bob,
shaking and with a terrible hangover, reluctantly agreed to give this
stranger on longer than 15 minutes. Instead of preaching, as he had done
with drunks back in New York, Bill shared his drinking experiences and
told Dr. Bob of his own need for communication. He spoke of Dr.
Silkworth's insights into the illness of alcoholism.
Dr. Bob, by coincidence, was also from Vermont, and he, too, had already
sought help from the Oxford Group. Expecting to hear the ranting's of and
evangelistic do-gooder, the physician found himself sharing with a fellow
alcoholic. They talked for nearly five hours.
Dr. Bob "stopped drinking abruptly."
Dr. Bob was to go on one more drunken spree a few weeks later, while at a
medical convention in Atlantic City. He had his last d drink on June 10,
1935, which is celebrated today as A.A.'s birthday. Bill stayed on in
Akron to try to salvage his business deal and, strapped for funds, moved
in with Dr. Bob, his wife Annie, and their two children, Bob and Sue.
Almost immediately the two men began to try to help other drunks.
After some failures, they learned that a patient was in Akron City
Hospital for the sixth time in four months and was in bad shape with the
D.T.s. They called on him. He was Bill D., a lawyer, who became A.A.
Number Three. Soon Dr. Bob began to treat prospective members on a
regular basis at St. Thomas Hospital, with the aid of the indefatigable
Sister Mary Ignatia.
Bill returned home late that year and began to call on alcoholics at
Towns Hospital. His first success was Hank P. (who later drank), and
slowly a group began to take shape in New York. The first meeting place
was Bill and Lois's house on Clinton Street in Brooklyn. They later met
at the old 24th Street Clubhouse. Here Bill would eventually meet Father
Ed Dowling, who came as a visitor. Father Dowling became Bill's close
friend and adviser and one of A.A.'s staunchest supporters.
In 1940, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. hosted a dinner "in the interest of
Alcoholics Anonymous." The dinner was held at the Union Club in New York
City, and was attended by many of the rich and famous. Bill dreamed of a
well-financed global network of drying out stations, with himself as the
humble head. He told the story of the low-bottom drunks as only Bill
could do. His hopes were dashed when Nelson Rockefeller, pinch-hitting
for his ill father, assured the millionaire guests that A.A. was a
spiritual program that might be spoiled by money. After the penniless
founders recovered from their disappointment, they realized that Mr.
Rockefeller had helped them discover that spiritual recovery was more
important than money--thus, the principle of self-support had been born!
The Rockefeller dinner also resulted in a much needed wave of newspaper
stories. "The effect," said Bill, "was to give A.A. a public status of
dignity and worth." It was followed in 1941 by the momentous Jack
Alexander article in The Saturday Evening Post, which brought Alcoholics
Anonymous to national attention and brought about a new wave of
"converts."
In 1938, Bill W. had begun work on the text that was to become Alcoholics
Anonymous. He attempted to describe "How It Works," and he also included
the recovery stories of the early members from New York and Akron. During
this process six steps were written, based on the ideas of the Oxford
Group. Bill felt that the six steps were essential, but that they had to
be expanded in order to "broaden and deepen the spiritual implications of
our presentation." In Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age, Bill tells the
story of his hard work and inspiration in writing the Twelve Steps.
"There must not be a single loophole through which the rationalizing
alcoholic could wriggle out. Maybe our six chunks of truth should be
broken up into smaller pieces." In a burst of late-night energy, Bill
wrote out the Steps, noting almost by coincidence that the number came to
twelve--the same as the twelve apostles. The Steps were included in
Chapter 5 of the Big Book after the usual heated debate.
In Bill's words, "There were conservative, liberal, and radical
viewpoints."
The second cornerstone of our Fellowship, the Twelve Traditions, also
written by Bill W., were formally introduced at the International
Convention in Cleveland in 1950, when the membership voted unanimously to
adopt them. Bill and Dr. Bob conceived the need for the Twelve Traditions
as a means of guarding A.A. against itself, and preserving the principles
of A.A. for the future. As Bill wrote in A.A. Comes of Age: "They
represent the distilled experience of our past, and we rely on them to
carry us in unity through the challenges and dangers which the future may
bring."
AA Everywhere--Anywhere: pages 10-17
SERVICE - THE THIRD LEGACY
Our Fellowship was very poor in the early days; sobriety was often a
fragile and scarce commodity. In 1938, a nonprofit Alcoholic Foundation
was formed through the efforts of Dr. Leonard Strong, Bill's
brother-in-law. The first Foundation consisted of three nonalcoholic
members (Willard Richardson, Frank Amos and John Wood) and two
alcoholics, (Dr. Bob and a New York member who later drank). Such was the
fragile nature of the early membership.
Soon after Alcoholics Anonymous, which came to be known as the Big Book,
was published, the Foundation assumed ownership of Works Publishing Co.
The first Foundation office was cubbyhole at 30 Vesey Street, New York
City, staffed by Bill and a nonalcoholic secretary, Ruth Hock, who typed
the first manuscript of the Big Book. Ruth also answered many of the
thousands of letters for help that began to arrive as A.A. became known.
During the 1940's, Alcoholics Anonymous grew at an almost geometric rate.
The Foundation office and the trustees were at the center of the growth,
as requests for help flooded the tiny office. The wide use of the Big
Book, the expansion of pamphlet literature, pleas for help, and the
response to requests for guidance on group problems all constituted a
growing service to the world of A.A.
In 1944, the office moved from Vesey Street to 415 Lexington Avenue,
opposite Grand Central Station, where it became a mecca for thousands of
A.A. travelers and visitors. As the decade waned, Bill and Dr. Bob saw
that the Alcoholic Foundation had no tie to the A.A. membership except
through the co-founders. Who would take their place when they passed on?
The idea they came up with--selfless and brilliant--was to turn
responsibility for the Fellowship over to the Fellowship, to form a
service structure through which the A.A. groups would govern their own
affairs.
It was proposed that the groups exercise this responsibility by electing
delegates who, along with the trustees and office staff, would meet
annually. This would be called the General Service Conference.
Bernard Smith, a nonalcoholic lawyer who was to serve as the first
chairman of the Conference, helped Bill to formulate the Conference
Charter. Since several of the trustees and many of the groups had
expressed grave doubts about the new Conference plan, Bill embarked on a
personal crusade to see the idea. In the midst of this effort, Dr. Bob,
who had fallen ill with cancer, died on November 16, 1950.
The following year, the first A.A. General Service Conference was held in
New York. It was agreed to try the Conference idea for five years to see
if it could function as the collective voice and conscience of A.A., yet
have absolutely no governing power over any individual A.A. member or
group. In spite of obvious problems, the General Service Board was named
as the replacement for the Alcoholic Foundation at the Second
International Convention in St. Louis in 1955.
Bill felt that the final step in the shift of responsibility should be to
change the ration between nonalcoholic and alcoholic trustees on the
General Service Board, and he pressed hard for this change for many
years. Finally, in 1966, the Conference recommended that the ratio be
changed to seven nonalcoholic trustees and 14 alcoholic trustees (eight
regional trustees, four general service trustees and two
trustees-at-large). This is the composition of the board today. (1995)
Meanwhile, the General Service office continued to grow. It was to move
four more times; it is now (1995) located on Riverside Drive and 120 St.
Early nonalcoholic secretaries were replaced by A.A. staff members, and a
paid general manager replaced the volunteers. Although he had stepped
down from active leadership, Bill continued to come to the office one day
a week and attend board meetings and Conferences.
His health began to fail in the late 1960's; Bill died on January 24,
1971.
AA Everywhere--Anywhere: pages 18-21
THE BIG BOOK
The Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous, is probably the most important single
factor in the recovery of most alcoholics who seek sobriety in A.A. It is
also one of the nonfiction bestsellers of all time. And yet, it was
almost not written.
In 1937, Bill and Dr. Bob met in Akron and tallied the results of their
two years' work. They counted together some 40 sober alcoholics, and "saw
that wholesale recovery was possible." They agreed that they needed a
book that would explain the program to alcoholics and therefore prevent
distortion of their word-of-mouth message. Meeting with 18 members of the
Akron Group, they proposed the book. The idea was met with substantial
opposition; many were against any publicity, turned thumbs down on any
printed material, and argued that "the apostles hadn't needed books." But
Bill and Dr. Bob persisted and, "by the barest majority," the Akronites
agreed that they should proceed.
By the summer of 1938 Bill had drafted the first two chapters. Harper and
Brothers offered to publish the book. But, after much consideration by
the trustees of the Alcoholic Foundation and much discussion in the
group, it was decided that A.A. should control and publish its own
literature--a decision, as it turned out, of tremendous importance for
the future of Alcoholics Anonymous.
In her memoir, Lois Remembers, Bill's wife, Lois, describes the great
tension that Bill went through as he wrote the Big Book.
"As Bill finished each chapter, he read it to the group that met at
Clinton Street. After these members had discussed it, going over every
detail and making suggestions, Bill sent it to Akron for the opinions of
members there.
"The pros and cons were mostly about the tone of the book. Some wanted it
slanted more toward the Christian religion; others, less. Many alcoholics
were agnostics or atheists. Then there were those of the Jewish faith
and, around the world, of other religions. Shouldn't the book be written
so it would appeal to them also? Finally it was agreed that the book
should present a universal spiritual program, not a specific religious
one, since all drunks were not Christian."
"When he finished writing and reread what he had put down, he was quite
pleased. Twelve principles had developed--the Twelve Steps.
"But when he showed them to the group, the old discussion was resumed.
There was `too much God,' it was said; and `For pete's sake, take out
that bit in Step Seven about getting on your knees.' They thrashed it out
this way and that with Bill as umpire. Finally they hit upon the phrases
`God as we understood Him' and `a Power greater than ourselves.' These
expressions were ten-strikes; they could be used by anyone any where.
"Then the question of the title arose. By that time 100 or so members had
been sober for two or three years, so the name `One Hundred Men' seemed
appropriate until one woman, Florence, joined the group and objected,
`The Way Out' was very popular for a while, but Bill thought it trite and
had Fitz, who was often in Washington, look it up in the Library of
Congress. There were already twelve books registered under that name.
"At one time Bill was tempted to call the book `The W--Movement' (using
his last name and to sign it as author. This natural but egoistical
impulse was soon overcome by more mature reasoning."
Finally, the Big Book rolled off the press in 1939, published under the
imprint of Works Publishing. Today (1995), the Big Book--which they could
hardly give away in 1939--is available in 30 languages, as well as in
Braille and in video in American Sign Language, and is fast approaching a
distribution (in English of 15,000,000 copies.
Contact:
The Legacy Group of Alcoholics Anonymous © 2005