Fortune, February 1951

This is the February 1951 Fortune Magazine article about M. Like the Saturday Evening Post article, Fortune Magazine gave permission to AA to reprint it and distribute it to it’s members. Reprints were sold by GSO of several articles about AA. ln May 1968 the article was made into a pamphlet and sold as pamphlet number P-12. lt was discontinued sometime in 1973 and was replaced by the March 1, 1941 Saturday Evening Post article by Jack Alexander.

A.A. A uniquely American phenomenon.

Americans react to most social problems broken. Seniority confers no favors. A.A. has by first shouting “There oughta be a law,” and one purpose only: “to help the sick alcoholic then calming down to measure the problem and recover, if he wishes. attack it by spontaneous individual effort. The ln a world whose spiritual values have American weakness for drink first produced the dropped close to the vanishing point, the strange ill-omened prohibition amendment. Recently it society of A.A. places its entire proposition upon has produced the more remarkable and more the reality of spiritual experience. lt achieves typical response described here. harmony among a membership in which Alcoholics Anonymous was conceived Catholics associate not only with Protestants by a drunk lying on a bed in a drunks’ hospital in and Jews but with high-decibel agnostics or New York in 1934, and had a hard birth in fancy religionists of species known only to God. Akron, Ohio, the following year. A doctor of Its members, who know better than to contradict medicine was present but at this critical moment the psychiatrists’ diagnosis that they are was too alcoholically jittery to know an “grandiose, infantile, and self-absorbed,” accouchement was taking place. The American practice daily an Obedience that has no tradition of adverse beginnings was thus fulfilled enforcement mechanism and no system of by this organization, which today equally fulfills punishment for infraction. The one rule common the tradition of success after struggle. By to every A.A. clubhouse is that if, as rarely birthplace, heritage, tradition, habits, looks, and occurs, a member seeks to attend a meeting tone of voice Alcoholics Anonymous is while drinking, he is escorted to the door, with unmistakably American. And yet in almost every the invitation to return only as soon as he recalls way it contradicts the stencils by which non- his society’s purpose. American minds gauge American achievement. lf A.A., successful and American, had a It has almost no money and wishes it could do password proof against any member’s with still less. ln fifteen years its membership forgetting, it would be “Failure.” One by one, has grown from nothing to 120,000, yet it never each member tackled something that proved too urges anyone to join. Of formal “organization” it big for him; only when he acknowledged his has almost none, yet it avers it “ought never to inability to deal with a circumstance that most have any.” A man or woman becomes a people can meet with ease was he able to member by simple declaration, and need share become a full member of this organization, of his decision with only one other human being’ those for whom “one drink is too many and a There are no pledges or constraints in A.A.; no thousand aren’t enough.” Dentists and doctors, records that must be kept or quotas that must be stevedores, ministers, cops, poets, publishers,

matrons, vocational-guidance counselors, Since those years A.A. has evolved into stenographers, artists, bartenders, and master a membership of 120,000 divided into some mechanics are all to be found in A.A.’s ranks, as 4,100 local groups. Metropolitan areas such as diverse and exclusive as a classified telephone New York, Cleveland, Chicago, and Los Angeles directory. Yet all have a common vantage point; may harbor 100 to 200 groups each. Ninety each one, from a broad and comfortable ridge, prisons have A.A. clubs within their walls, and has a clear view downward into the Valley of the over 100 clubs exist to further the A.A. idea, Shadow of Death. although not formally affiliated with A.A. ln Although alcoholism is a state so Chicago the weekly “intergroup” meeting never complex that a leak-proof definition is impossible brings out fewer than 1,200 A.A.’s at a time. ln here, a clinician can, in his own bald terms, New York, the “Annual Banquet” may have to be describe it simply: “a progressive, incurable and abandoned unless some way can be devised of fatally terminating disease.” That alcoholism splitting it into sections, for no hotel has a could be arrested was well known, but this ballroom large enough to seat it. knowledge -was for many years almost useless, Much more important are the statistics of for the arrestment was up to the drinker: would sobriety. Of those who make a genuine effort to he or would he not stop? Usually he would not, stop drinking through A.A. principles, 50 per cent no matter how he longed to, for he was inwardly get sober at once, and stay that way. Another 25 convinced that he could not; so long as he new per cent get sober after some relapses. The that a couple of quick ones would give him a remaining 25 per cent show improvement. A.A. desperately bought temporary relief from his is not out to make a showing. lt refuses to sufferings, he could see no permanent way out. screen its membership, as some doctors would Psychiatry’s dictum that alcoholism was only a like, to eliminate the “hopeless” cases; gaining a symptom of a deep-seated psychic disorder was statistical advantage is not A.A.’s purpose-and not very helpful in the crisis forever engulfing the furthermore an impressive number of “hopeless” alcoholic and his familY. cases have recovered. A.A. quietly and with good cause believes that all those who relapse It dawned on Bill W. * in 1934, when he or drop away will be back later and permanently, was close to the last stages of alcoholic if they live. The word “cure,” however, is not in disintegration, that if he attempted to help other the A.A. vocabulary. On the contrary the man alcoholics he might thereby help himself’ He who succeeds in staying sober must still went to work-and found himself able to stay recognize himself as an alcoholic. sober for the first time in years. But this was cold comfort, for the drunks on whom he worked Suppose you were to go to an oPen stayed drunk. He was on the verge of a relapse meeting of A.A., as you are perfectly free to do. thai might well have been final when he met the You would find yourself in a group of from thirty drunken Dr. Bob in Akron. Only then did it dawn to 300 people, one-third of whom might be that the hetp must flow two ways: one-sided women. (Only 10 to 15 per cent of A.A.’s active preachment was useless, but when help was membership is female, but non-alcoholic wives mutually offered and accepted between two of alcoholic husbands are attending meetings in suffering and desperate drunks, each of whom increasing numbers, and this attendance is sought to help himself by helping the other, a strongly encouraged.) The average age would new element entered into a materialistically be between thirty-five and forty and is steadily hopeless situation. As a result of this help from growing younger; it used to be that an alcoholic the helpless, Bill W. stayed sober and Dr. Bob seldom recognized his trouble until his middle got sober, and the nucleus of Alcoholics forties, whereas now, with greater publicity for Anonymous was formed. By the end of that year the whole problem, he sees what is wrong A.A. had three members. By the end of another sooner; today, some A.A.’s are not much over year it had fifteen. By the end of still another it thirty. Prosperous, less prosperous, and poor had forty–divided among Akron, New York, and would be represented in about equal thirds; so Cleveland. That was all. would the educational levels of college, high

school, or less. lf this were a typical meeting’ 40 about how much he had to drink the night before per cent of those present would be Catholics– and starts lying about it, there’s maybe just a double the number you would encounter in an little bit of a chance that he’s getting to be one of exact sample of the U.S. population. At the other us. But that’s uP to You. end of the scale are the Jews–represented **by “Some people are able to get the A.A. no more than a sprinkling, even in New York. program while they still have their jobs and their There is no use trYing to draw wives and their homes, but there are others who conclusions from appearances; the blowzy old don’t seem to be able to quit drinking until lady near the front may be a casual visitor who they’ve lost everything. That’s given rise to the never had a drink in her life, whereas the pink- saying that there are ‘high-bottom’ drunks and cheeked, white-haired gentleman who looks like ‘low-bottom’ drunks. But remember what Bill W. a a deacon may have had record of fifty said. ‘The difference between the high-bottom alcoholic admissions into hospitals and jails’ The drunk and the low-bottom drunk is that both are group is probably meeting in the parish house of lying in the gutter but the high-bottom drunk has ; church, a political clubhouse, a public his head on the curb.’ We are all drunks. lf you auditoriunn, or a small mezzanine banquet room think you are a drunk we invite you to join us’ of a hotel–any place where an evening’s rent is “You’re going to hear from three reasonable and the atmosphere is neither so members tonight, and they’re all going to have hightoned as to discourage a man wearing out very different stories to tell. All we ask of you hii last pair of shoes nor so forbidding as to new people is that you keep an open mind. lf scare a Caspar Milquetoast. The air is dense you don’t happen to hear anything tonight that with tobacco smoke, and the evening’s chairman iits ln with your own story, or reminds you of has to bang his gavel hard to cut through the your own pattern of drinking, please keep loud, familiar talk. There is no set speech for coming, for sooner or later you’re bound to hear chairmen, but a typical opening might be something that hits you right where you live. something like this: “And I ought to tell the newcomers that “Ladies and gentlemen, I wonder if the we don’t practice any religious ritual of any sort new people who are here for the first, second, or here, except that we end every meeting by third time would please raise their hands’ standing up and reciting the Lord’s Prayer, and That’s fine. t’ll ask the old-timers to please make we ask you all to join. The first speaker this themselves known to the new people and try to evening…” see they have a good time. As you know, AA’ The first speaker, and every speaker at groups have two kinds of meetings, open and every A.A. meeting, begins with one standard 6tosed. The closed meetings are for alcoholics line: “My name is-, and I am an alcoholic.” only, but tonight isan open meeting, so Thereafter he says exactly what he likes, and everybody is welcome. lf there are any reporters what he usually likes is to tell the story of his here I just want to remind them that they can drinking, and how, eventually, he came into AA’ write anything they like so long as they don’t use What a newcomer, feeling in his heart of hearts anybody’s name. You’ve got to respect us on that he is an alcoholic, expects to experience at that because some people are funny: they usen’t the first meeting can never be known, except it to mind being seen in the Hotel Metropolis so is a good bet he does not expect to be shaken drunk they couldn’t stand up, but they’re still a with laughter. But that is what usually does little bit sensitive about being seen sitting down happen to him, and what usually dissolves his here cold sober. . . . intention of leaving after the first twenty minutes “Maybe you think we have some fancy and making a dash for the nearest bar’ No one test that cah tell you whether you’re an alcoholic has quite such terrific stories to tell as an or not. But we haven’t’ The only person who can alcoholic, and once he is released from his fears decide whether you’re an alcoholic is yourself’ lf and shames by having put his alcoholic activity you want a little helpful hint l’lltell you something behind him he makes a formidable raconteur, i nearO Fanny J. say at a meeting a couple of using his old self as the butt of his new’ The months ago: when anybody stops boasting

laughter that shakes the hall is the laughter of little of conversion nowadays because so many recognition. people really dread being God-bitten. But Over and over, the newcomer hears conversion, as broadly described by William references to the Twelve Steps and in particular James, does seem to be our basic process. . . .

to the Twelfth Step. The Twelve Steps constitute “Our deep kinship, the urgency of our at once the philosophy of A.A. and its means to mission, the need to abate our neurosis for therapy for the alcoholic who is making an contented survival; all these, together with love honest attempt to stop drinking. They are not for God and man, have contained us in absolutes, but are presented as suggestions. ln surprising unity. There seems safety in numbers. condensed form for the quick-reading non- Enough sandbags muffle any amount of alcoholic, they are these: dynamite. We think we are a pretty secure, First, the alcoholic admits that he has happy family. Drop by any A.A. meeting for a become powerless over alcohol; that his life has look.” become unmanageable. This is the admission of failure without which his ego does not undergo Among the toughest of the tough, the the deep deflation that seems the key to lowest of the low, the most cynical of the cynical, success. the program works. The alcoholic, man or Next, he comes to believe that onlY a woman, is merely urged to look again at the idea Power greater than himself can restore his life, of a Higher Power, and to dissociate that idea and turns his witl and his life over to the care of from the old-man-withthe-whiskers, the angry God as he understands Him. Santa Claus, the avenging anthropomorphic Further, via nine detailed suggestions, tyrant with which he was stuffed and terrified in the alcoholic undertakes a searching moral his childhood. Gradually the phrase “as you inventory of himself; admits to God and one understand Him” takes hold. Sometimes the human being his wrongs and shortcomings, concept of the Higher Power can be accepted asking God to remove them, and himself making only by some elaborate stratagem. One the human amends possible. He seeks by alcoholic, determined in his agnosticism, at last prayer and meditation to improve his conscious solved his problem by accepting as a Power contact with God as he understands Him, greater than himself the steam radiator that praying only for knowledge of His will, and the clanked and hissed in his miserable room. lt was power to carry that out. hot and full of energy and burned him when he Finally, having had a sPiritual touched it. lt was sufficient. The radiator clanked experience, he tries to carry this message to inscrutably; the alcoholic stopped drinking. alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all One by one, the speakers who rise and his affairs (the Twelfth SteP). tell their stories 12,000 times or more a week the “Alcoholics Anonymous”‘ said Bill W. country over are driven to say the same thing: “l when the American Psychiatric Association don’t understand it, but I don’t need to; it works.” invited him to address it in 1949, “is not a Certainly one thing that works is the feeling of religious organization; there is no dogma. The fellowship engendered by several hundred one theological proposition is ‘Power greater people in the same room, every one of whom than one’s self,’ but even this concept is forced knows at firsthand the exact horrible details of on no one. The newcomer merely immerses alcoholic suffering. Most alcoholics, before they himself in our society and tries the program as encounter A.A., are convinced that nowhere in best he can. Left alone, he will surely report the the annals of medicine or abnormal psychology gradual onset of a transforming experience, call can any parallel to themselves be found. “lt may it what he may. Observers thought A.A. could be all right for some people but it would never appeal only to the religiously susceptible. Yet work for me” is the most common first response our membership includes a former member of heard by an A.A. having his first talk with an the American Atheist Society and about 20,000 alcoholic who does not yet dare to hope. others almost as tough. The dying can become Nothing is a more powerful solvent to this sort of remarkably open-minded. Of course we speak suffering egotism than being physically

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surrounded by several hundred people, every telling him that not only is life possible without one of whom once held precisely that same alcohol but it is a damned sight more pleasant. thought, and slowly realizing that the horrors This is difficult. A universal feature of advanced once thought to be unique are, in reality, a alcoholism is a sharp constriction of interests: universal experience in the society of A.A. Most the alcoholic who once belonged to a choral A.A.’s carry fat address books in their pockets, in society, went to sketch class once a week, these are crammed the names, addresses, and collected matchbooks, and went on short-line telephone numbers of the A.A.’s he has met railroad excursions has now abandoned all inside or outside his own group. This is the these things in favor of continuous drinking. lt is equipment he needs for what is known as the hard for him to find his way back to these things Nickel Therapy: when the desire for a drink alone: it is hard for him to find his way back to reaches dangerous proportions, the AA. drops a society at all. But A.A. offers him a society that S-cent piece in a coin telephone and dials the will instantly welcome him, ask him no number of a fellow member who will sit out the questions, but instead begin to deluge him with siege with him. the mirthful, frightful record of its own calamities. The Twelfth Step, by which alcoholics A.A. is founded on the Christian principle work with alcoholics, does not mean that A.A. of Love. lt is the fashion, even in these dark evangelizes, proselytizes, or whoops things up days, for the worldly to scoff at such a in any way among “hot prospects.” lf a declaration, but the A.A. does not scoff and does despairing wife calls an A.A. (almost every not blush at holding so old-fashioned an idea. sizable telephone book in the U.S. has an A.A. Like ceasing to drink, the A.A. finds that loving number in it) and asks that he “try to do his fellow man makes no impossible exactions of something with Jim,” the first inquiry must an ordinary, alltoo-human being. always be directed to the point, “Does Jim want it?’ lf the answer is “No, but God knows he There was once a new A.A. named Joe, ought to,” the AA. will beg off seeing Jim and who came to an older A.A. named Fred, asking have a chat with his wife or family instead. Only advice. Joe had encountered a third A.A. named when Jim is ready to talk will the AA. go to work George whose every attribute of personality Joe directly. Even then, there is no urging. The A.A. found repulsive. Was it essential that Joe should member will talk not about Jim but about love George? Yes, said Fred, it was. Joe himself. He will emphasize that no A.A. takes thought for a long, dismal moment and then any sort of pledge of sobriety. He works, announced that if this were true he would have instead, on the “Twenty-four Hour Plan,” which to retire from the program and resume drinking, the A.A. often expresses as “Tomorrow I may go loving George was beyond his powers. on the damnedest bender you ever heard of, but “Wait a minute,” said the old A.A. “There l’m not going to have a drink today. The Twenty- isn’t anything to keep you from loving George. four Hour Plan is of vital importance to those Hell, you don’t have lo like the s.o.b. any more who have newly stopped drinking-for to them, than ldo.” nine times out of ten, the contemplation of the balance of a lifetime without the solace of alcohol is intolerable. Yet A.A.’s who have been * Anonymity is, to the A.A., of immense dry ten years or more still wisely make their spiritual significance–reminding him “to place plans for sobriety no further than a day in principles above personalities.” Bill W. and Dr. advance. The first longing of someone who has Bob, referred to in this article, were the first two stopped drinking is to be able to resume it members of A.A. and thus cannot escape some successfully; only slowly is this point of view identification as “founder” and “co-founder.” Dr. replaced by the one that says “l wouldn’t take a Bob’s death late in 1950 revealed him at last to drink now, even if I could.” All this the A.A. the general public as Dr. Robert H. Smith, noted discusses at low Pressure. surgeon of Akron, Ohio. Where the A.A. trulY burns to get something across to the suffering alcoholic is in

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** Of all groups needing A.A., the American the last few years have A.A. groups formed in Negro stands first. AA. Welcomes him, but the Negro communities such as New York’s Harlem. Negro’s knowledge of alcoholism as a sickness is understandably slow in developing. Only in Source: Fortune, February 1951

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