AA had its beginnings in 1935 at Akron, Ohio, as the outcome of a meeting between Bill W., a New YorkThe Birth of AA and Its Growth
in the
United States and Canada
stockbroker, and Dr. Bob S., an Akron surgeon. Both had been hopeless alcoholics.
Prior to that time, Bill and Dr. Bob had each been in contact with the Oxford Group, a mostly nonalcoholic fellowship that emphasized universal spiritual values in daily living. In that period, the Oxford Groups in America were headed by the noted Episcopal clergyman, Dr. Samuel Shoemaker.Under this spiritual influence, and with the help of an old-time friend, Ebby T., Bill had gotten sober and had then maintained his recovery by working with other alcoholics---though none of them had actually recovered. Meanwhile, Dr. Bob’s Oxford Group membership at Akron had not helped him enough to achieve sobriety.
When Dr. Bob and Bill finally met, the effect on the doctor was immediate. This time, he found himself face-to-face with a fellow sufferer who had made good. Bill emphasized that alcoholism was a malady of mind, emotions and body. He had learned this all-important fact from Dr. William D. Silkworth of Towns Hospital in New York, where Bill had often been a patient.
Though a physician, Dr. Bob had not known alcoholism to be a disease. Responding to Bill’s convincing ideas, he soon got sober---never to drink again. The founding spark of AA had been struck.
Both men immediately set to work with alcoholics at Akron’s City Hospital, where one patient quickly achieved complete sobriety. Though the name "Alcoholics Anonymous" had not yet been coined, these three men actually made up the nucleus of the first AA group.
In the fall of 1935, a second group of alcoholics slowly took shape in New York. A third appeared at Cleveland in 1939. It had taken over four years to produce 100 sober alcoholics in the three founding groups.
Early in 1939, the Fellowship published its basic text, Alcoholics Anonymous. Written by Bill, it explained AA’s philosophy and methods---the core of which was the now well-known Twelve Steps of recovery. The book was also reinforced by case histories of some thirty recovered members. From this point, AA’s development was rapid.
Also in 1939, the Cleveland Plain Dealer carried a series of articles about AA, supported by warm editorials. The Cleveland group of only twenty members was deluged by countless pleas for help. Alcoholics sober only a few weeks were set to work on brand-new cases. This was a new departure, and the results were fantastic. A few months later, Cleveland’s membership had expanded to 500. For the first time, it was shown that sobriety could be "mass-produced."
In New York, Dr. Bob and Bill had organized an overall trusteeship for the budding Fellowship in 1938. Friends of John D. Rockefeller Jr. became board members alongside a contingent of AAs. This board was named 'The Alcoholic Foundation.'
However, all efforts to raise large amounts of money failed, because Rockefeller had wisely concluded that great sums might "spoil" the infant society. Nevertheless, the foundation managed to open a tiny office in New York to handle inquiries and to distribute the AA book---an enterprise which, by the way, had been mostly financed by the members themselves.
The book and the new office were quickly put to use. An article about AA was carried by Liberty magazine in the fall of 1939, resulting in some 800 urgent calls for help.
In 1940, Rockefeller gave a dinner for many of his prominent New York friends to publicize AA. This brought yet another flood of pleas. Each inquiry received a personal letter and a small pamphlet. Attention was also drawn to the book Alcoholics Anonymous, which soon moved into brisk circulation. Aided by mail from New York, and by AA travelers from already established centers, many new groups came alive. At the year’s end, the membership stood at 2,000.
In March 1941, the Saturday Evening Post featured an excellent article about AA, and the response was enormous. By the close of that year, the membership had jumped to 6,000, and the number of groups multiplied in proportion. Spreading across the U.S. and Canada, the Fellowship mushroomed.
By 1950, 100,000 recovering alcoholics could be found worldwide. Spectacular though this was, the period 1940-1950 was nonetheless one of great uncertainty. The crucial question was whether all those mercurial alcoholics could live and work together in groups. Could they hold together and function effectively? This was the unsolved problem. Corresponding with thousands of groups about their problems became a chief occupation of the New York headquarters.
By 1946, however, it had already become possible to draw sound conclusions about the kinds of attitude, practice and function that would best suit AA’s purpose. Those principles, which had emerged from strenuous group experience, were codified by Bill W. in what are today the Twelve Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous.
By 1950, the earlier chaos had largely disappeared. A successful formula for AA unity and functioning had been achieved and put into practice.
During this hectic ten-year period, Dr. Bob devoted himself to the question of hospital care for alcoholics, and to their indoctrination with AA principles. Large numbers of alcoholics flocked to Akron to receive hospital care at St. Thomas Catholic hospital. Dr. Bob became a member of its staff. Subsequently, he and the remarkable Sister M. Ignatia, also of the staff, cared for and brought AA to some 5,000 sufferers.
After Dr. Bob’s death in 1950, Sister Ignatia continued to work at Cleveland’s Charity Hospital, where she was assisted by the local groups and where 10,000 more sufferers first found AA. This set an example of hospitalization wherein AA could cooperate with both medicine and religion.
Also in 1950, AA held its first International Convention at Cleveland, where Dr. Bob made his last appearance and keyed his final talk to the need of keeping AA simple. He then was a witness as the Twelve Traditions were enthusiastically adopted for the permanent use of the AA Fellowship throughout the world. (Dr. Bob died on November 16, 1950.)
The following year, the New York office had greatly expanded its activities to consist of public relations, advice to new groups, services to hospitals, prisons, "Loners" and "Internationalists" (see Membership), and cooperation with other agencies in the alcoholism field.
The headquarters was also publishing "standard" AA books and pamphlets, and it supervised their translation into other languages. The Fellowship's international magazine, The AA Grapevine, had achieved a large circulation. These and many other activities had become indispensable for AA as a whole.
Nevertheless, these vital services were still in the hands of an isolated board of trustees, whose only link to the Fellowship had been Bill W. and Dr. Bob. As the co-founders had foreseen years earlier, it became absolutely necessary to link AA’s world trusteeship (now the General Service Board of Alcoholics Anonymous) with the Fellowship that it served.
Delegates from all states and provinces of the U.S. and Canada were forthwith called in. This body for world service first met in 1951. Despite earlier misgivings, the gathering was a great success. For the first time, the remote trusteeship became directly accountable to AA as a whole. The AA General Service Conference had been created, and AA’s overall functioning was assured for the future.
A second International Convention was held in St. Louis in 1955 to celebrate the Fellowship’s 20th anniversary. The General Service Conference had by then completely proved its worth. Here, on behalf of AA’s oldtimers, Bill W. turned the future care and custody of AA over to the Conference and its trustees. At this moment, the Fellowship went on its own; AA had "come of age."
Had it not been for its early friends, Alcoholics Anonymous might never have come into being. And without its host of well-wishers who have since given of their time and effort---particularly those friends in medicine, religion, and world communications---AA could never have grown and prospered. The Fellowship here records its constant gratitude.
It was on January 24, 1971, that Bill W. died of pneumonia in Miami Beach, Florida, where---seven months earlier---he had delivered at the 35th Anniversary International Convention what proved to be his last words to fellow AAs: "God bless you and Alcoholics Anonymous forever."
Since then, AA has become truly global, and this has revealed that AA’s way of life can today transcend most barriers of race, creed and language. A World Service Meeting, started in 1969, has been held biennially since 1972. Its locations alternate between New York and overseas. It has met in London; Helsinki; San Juan del Rio, Mexico; Guatemala City; Munich; Cartagena, Colombia; and Auckland, New Zealand.
This material is from the official Web Site
of Alcoholics Anonymous World Services
and is reprinted here with permission.
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