Alcoholics Anonymous Popular Books

Alcoholics Anonymous Biography & Facts

Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is a global peer-led mutual aid fellowship begun in the United States dedicated to abstinence-based recovery from alcoholism through its spiritually inclined twelve-step program. AA's twelve traditions, besides stressing anonymity, establish it as non-professional, unaffiliated, non-denominational and apolitical with a public relations policy of attraction rather than promotion. In 2020 AA estimated a worldwide membership of over two million, with 75% of those in the US and Canada. AA dates its founding to 1935 with Bill Wilson’s (Bill W.) and Bob Smith’s (Dr. Bob) first commiseration alcoholic-to-alcoholic. Meeting through AA's immediate precursor the Christian revivalist Oxford Group, they and other alcoholics there helped each other until forming in 1937 what became AA. The new fellowship—at first only white and male, though this was neither intentional or for long—published in 1939 Alcoholics Anonymous: The Story of How More than One Hundred Men Have Recovered from Alcoholism. Known as “the Big Book", it is also the origin of AA's name. The Big Book debuted AA's suggested—but not required—twelve steps as a continuing sobriety program of prayer, reflection, admission, better conduct and atonement, all to produce a "spiritual awakening" followed by taking others—usually sponsees—through the steps. For taking the steps, divining and following the will of an undefined God "as we understood Him" or as “a higher power" is integral, but differing practices and beliefs, including those of atheists, are accommodated. To keep sobriety as its primary purpose, and to remain what Wilson called a “benign anarchy”, AA instituted its twelve traditions in 1950 to ensure membership to all wishing to stop drinking with no dues or fees required. They urge all memberships be kept anonymous, especially in public media, but for broken anonymity, no consequences are prescribed. The traditions have AA steering clear of hierarchies, dogma, public controversies, while other outside entanglements, or acquisition of property are to be avoided. Additionally, members are advised not to use AA for material gain or to increase public prestige. To stay independent and self-supporting, the traditions would have no AA entity accepting outside contributions. For all demographics, a 2020 scientific review found clinical treatments increasing AA participation via AA twelve step facilitation (AA/TSF) had sustained remission rates 20-60% above other well-established treatments. Additionally, 4 of the 5 economic studies in the review found that AA/TSF lowered healthcare costs considerably. Regarding the disease model of alcoholism, an otherwise receptive AA has not endorsed it though many AA members have promoted it towards wider acceptance. With AA’s permission other recovery fellowships such as Narcotics Anonymous and Al-Anon have adopted and adapted the twelve steps and traditions. History AA was founded on 10 June 1935 but AA's origins are said to have begun when the renowned psychotherapist Carl Jung inspired Rowland H., an otherwise hopeless drunk, to seek a spiritual solution by sending him to the Oxford Group— a non-denominational, altruistic Christian movement modeled after first-century Christianity. Ebby Thacher got sober in that same Oxford Group and reached out to help his drinking buddy Bill Wilson. Thacher approached Wilson saying that he had "got religion", was sober, and that Wilson could do the same if he set aside objections and instead formed a personal idea of God, "another power" or "higher power". Feeling a "kinship of common suffering", Wilson attended his first group gathering, although he was drunk. Within days, Wilson admitted himself to the Charles B. Towns Hospital after drinking four beers on the way—the last alcohol he ever drank. Under the care of Dr. William Duncan Silkworth (an early benefactor of AA), Wilson's detox included the deliriant belladonna. At the hospital, a despairing Wilson experienced a bright flash of light, which he felt to be God revealing himself. This "spiritual awakening" may have been brought on by belladonna hallucinations and delirium tremens. Following his hospital discharge, Wilson joined the Oxford Group and tried to recruit other alcoholics to the group. These early efforts to help others kept him sober, but were ineffective in getting anyone else to join the group and get sober. Dr. Silkworth suggested that Wilson place less stress on religion (as required by The Oxford Group) and more on the science of treating alcoholism. Wilson's first success came during a business trip to Akron, Ohio, where he was introduced to 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 10 June 1935, the date marked by AA for its anniversaries. The first female member, Florence Rankin, joined AA in March 1937, and the first non-Protestant member, a Roman Catholic, joined in 1939. The first black AA group commenced in 1945 in Washington D.C., and was founded by Jim S., an African-American physician from Virginia. While writing the Big Book in the several years after 1935, Wilson developed the Twelve Steps, which were influenced by the Oxford Group's 6 steps and various readings, including William James's The Varieties of Religious Experience. The Big Book, the Twelve Steps, and the Twelve Traditions To share their method, Wilson and other members wrote the initially-titled book, Alcoholics Anonymous: The Story of How More than One Hundred Men Have Recovered from Alcoholism, 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". They seek guidance and strength through prayer and meditation from God or a 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; continue to take a moral inventory, pray, meditate, and 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. By 1946, as the growing fellowship quarreled over structure, purpose, authority, finances and publicity, Wilson began to form and promote what became known as AA's "Twelve Traditions", which are 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 publicit.... Discover the Alcoholics Anonymous popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Alcoholics Anonymous books.