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Richard Rogers Peabody (23 January 1892 – 26 April 1936) was an American psychotherapist who specialized in alcoholism. Peabody grew up as a member of the upper class in Boston, Massachusetts. He attended Groton, where his grandfather was headmaster, and later enrolled at Harvard as had many of his family before him. He married Polly Jacob, the daughter of another blue-blooded Boston family, with whom he had two children. He served as a captain during World War I in the American Expeditionary Force. Upon returning from World War I he became an alcoholic. His lost his inheritance because of his drinking and his wife to an affair. After their divorce, he sought help through the Emmanuel Movement and later wrote a book, The Common Sense of Drinking, in which he described a secularized treatment methodology. He was the first authority to proclaim that there was no cure for alcoholism. His book became a best seller and was a major influence on Alcoholics Anonymous founder Bill Wilson. He died at age 44. Early life Born on 23 Jan 1892 to Jacob Crowninshield Rogers Peabody and Florence Dumaresq Wheatland, his family was among the upper-class of Boston society. By the early 20th century a case could be made that the Peabodies had supplanted the Cabots and the Lodges as the most distinguished name in the region. As a youth, Peabody attended Groton, a small and elite prep school that his uncle, the Reverend Endicott Peabody, founded. He then attended Harvard, although he did not graduate, perhaps due to his growing fondness for alcohol. His great-great-grandfather was Salem shipowner and privateer Joseph Peabody who made a fortune importing pepper from Sumatra as well as opium from Eastern-Asia and was one of the wealthiest men in the United States at the time of his death in 1844. Another of his ancestors was Massachusetts Bay Colony Governor John Endecott, who ordered the hanging of non-conformist Quakers, but who none-the-less was a friend of Roger Williams. Marriage In 1915, with his uncle Reverend Endicott Peabody officiating, he married his long-time girlfriend, 24-year-old Mary "Polly" Jacob. Polly was a debutante who at age 19 had received a patent for the first modern brassiere. They lived in a stone cottage on Quaker Ridge and Dick commuted to a job at Johns-Manville in Manhattan.: 8  After a year of marriage, Polly became pregnant, and because the icy steps of the stone cottage were unsafe, they moved to an apartment on Fifty-third Street in New York. Polly found Dick's temperament to be far from her own. When they had a son, William Jacob, on February 4, 1916. Dick was at first excited to become a father, but soon tired of the demanding infant that took up so much of his wife's time and energy.: 8  Polly found "Dick was not the most indulgent of parents and like his father before him, he forbade the gurgles and cries of infancy; when they occurred he walked out, and often walked back unsteadily." Polly concluded that Dick was a well-educated but undirected man and a reluctant father. Less than a year later Dick Peabody enlisted at the Mexican border where he enlisted in Battery A, Boston's "crack militia," which was charged with stopping Pancho Villa's cross-border raids. Polly and Billy moved in with Dick's parents at their North Shore estate where they summered.: 9  Less than a year after he returned home, he enlisted to fight in World War I. Their second child, a daughter, Poleen Wheatland ("Polly"), was born on August 12, 1917, but Dick was already in Officers Training Camp at Plattsburgh, New York, where he was commissioned a second lieutenant in the artillery. Dick became a captain in the United States Army's 15th Field Artillery, 2nd Division, American Expeditionary Force. Polly was largely cared for by his parents, but found, "My father-in-law was a stickler for polish, both of manners and minerals." Her mother-in-law wore "nun-like dresses and in bed or out wore starched cuffs as sever as piping." Her husband meanwhile was enjoying life at the front as a bachelor.: 10  When the war ended, Richard remained in Paris for a while, enjoying the adulation of the French. When he returned to the United States, he started a shipping business of his own using Polly's inheritance for capital.: 18  In April they moved back to the stone cottage at Quaker Ridge. Dick's shipping business went under. Polly and Billy moved in with Dick's parents at their North Shore estate where they summered.: 9  Service in World War I Less than a year after Peabody returned from the Mexican Revolution, he re-enlisted during the summer of 1917 and began training at the Officers Training Camp at Plattsburgh, New York, where he was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the 15th Field Artillery, 2nd Division, American Expeditionary Force. Bill Wilson who would later found Alcoholics Anonymous trained at the same camp that summer and was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in Battery C of the 66th Coastal Artillery. Their lives would intersect again in the 1930s when both would become involved in treating alcoholism. On August 12, 1917, Richard and Polly had a daughter, Poleen Wheatland (also nicknamed "Polly"). A week and a half after Polly was born, her mother took her to see her father off to war in France.: 9  Mother and daughter moved in with Polly Peabody's mother in Windward, Massachusetts. In the fall of 1917 she moved in with her in-laws at their home in Danvers, Massachusetts. In the middle of 1921, Dick Peabody suddenly returned home from France to his new station in Columbia, South Carolina. He summoned his wife to meet him, and she borrowed money from her children's nurse and her uncle for the train fare to Columbia. They made love and slept the night in a slit trench because all the hotels were full.: 10  Polly found an apartment and moved her children and the nurse down to Columbia. When the war ended in November, Dick was left to live off a family allowance. After life as a captain in the artillery, where he had been awarded the Croix de Guerre and had lived life like a bachelor, domestic life with Polly and the two children was a letdown, and he took up drinking heavily again.: 36  In the spring of 1922, in an attempt to dry out. Dick was committed to a sanitarium again. Polly found after the war that Dick had only three real interests, all acquired at Harvard: to play, to drink, and to turn out, at any hour, to chase fire engines. Peabody even persuaded the fire chief to wire a fire alarm bell to his house. Polly's life was difficult during the war years, and when her husband returned home and resumed drinking, her commitment to her marriage was further weakened. Polly felt that her husband was a well-educated but undirected man and a reluctant father. Wife's affair While Dick had been at war, his wife Polly had been carrying on a not-very-secret affair. Mrs. Henrietta Crosby saw in Mrs. Polly Peabody a trustworthy mother who could chaperone her son Harry Crosby and s.... Discover the Anonymous Raymond Wilson Chambers popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Anonymous Raymond Wilson Chambers books.