Alcoholics Anonymous Celebrates Its 50th Year

by Baz Edmeades

Fifty years ago this summer two men managed to cast off the chains of their alcohol addiction. The fellowship they founded has saved the lives of millions.

Within a year of Jack Alexander’s report on Alcoholics Anonymous in The Saturday Evening Post, AA ‘s ranks leaped from 2,000 to 8,000 and continued to climb. The Post is still hearing from grateful relatives of alcoholics. We received this letter in 1982: “Your magazine did the ultimate service for my father. . . . Physically a wreck, having d.t.’s, he would not have lived long. . . . I took him to the nearest chapter meeting. . . and he swore he would never drink again.”

The March 1, 1941, Saturday Evening psychoanalyst Carl Jung was treating an Post (adorned with an appealing Norman American named Rowland H. for a drinking Rockwell cover and costing five cents) is a problem. No sooner had therapy ended, historic issue. It contains a Jack Alexander story however, than Rowland lapsed back into that turned Alcoholics Anonymous, an obscure drunkenness. Refusing to take him back as a self-help organization, into an American patient, Jung told Rowland bluntly that further institution. psychiatric measure were pointless. His only AA’s growth has not leveled off in the hope of recovery, said Jung, lay in a “vital” intervening years. The fellowship now has more spiritual experience. than one million members, and its message of Returning to the United States, Rowland spiritual renewal is felt world-wide. found spirituality–and sobriety–with the Oxford This July in Montreal, Canada, some Group, an evangelistic organization founded by 50,000 people from around the world will meet a Lutheran minister, Dr. Frank Buchman. to celebrate AA’s 50th birthday. They will gather Rowland shared Jung’s message, and his own without hoopla or hype, for AA has a firm policy experience, with other problem drinkers whom against promotion. The meeting, nonetheless, he met through the group. will be one of celebration, an expression of As a result of Rowland’s efforts, at least “sheer joy” by recovered alcoholics and their one member, Ebby T., was able to stop drinking families. Among the honored guests will be the for a time. Near the end of 1934, Ebby, then surviving relatives of two strong-willed men about six months sober, went to Brooklyn to see without whom Alcoholics Anonymous would his old friend Bill Wilson, who had fallen upon never have been founded. This is their incredible hard times. story: Bill, a tall, good-looking man, had been Alcoholics Anonymous was founded in one of the first, and best, security analysts on 1935 after a New York stockbroker, William the New York Stock Exchange. He had Griffith Wilson, met a fellow alcoholic, Dr. Robert conceived the notion that investors would do Holbrook Smith, in Akron, Ohio. The fellowship well to take a closer look at the businesses is reckoned to have started on June 10 of that whose stocks they were buying. He and his wife, year, the day that Dr. Smith took his last drink, a Lois, had quit their jobs and taken to the road to beer accompanied by a tranquilizer. Dr. Smith do just that. needed to steady his nerves–he was about to His breakthrough was to discover the perform an operation. great investment potential of the General The whole story starts a few years Electric Company at the advent of radio. Other earlier. A pebble from the Alps had started the coups followed and brought Bill prestige and avalanche of recovery that was to become success. The crash of 1929 hurt Bill, but he Alcoholics Anonymous. In 1931 the Swiss made no less than two financial recoveries in the

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early ’30s. Alcohol (in the heart of the Then came an event that would change Prohibition!) finally reduced him to poverty. A everything. “Suddenly the room lit up with a friend remembered how things were during this great white light. I was caught up in an ecstasy period: that there are no words to describe. It seemed to “Nearly half a century has passed, but I me, in the mind’s eye, that I was on a can still see Bill coming into Ye Olde Illegal Bar mountain and that a wind not of air but of spirit on a freezing afternoon with a slow stride-he was blowing. And then it burst upon me that I never hurried-and looking over with lofty dignity was a free man.” at the stack of bottles back of the bar, containing In later years Bill was to downplay this those rare imported beverages straight off the event. With cheerful iconoclasm, he would refer line from Hoboken. One time at Whitehall to it as his “hot flash” experience. He insisted subway station, not far from Busto’s [a speak- that his real battle with ignorance and arrogance easy] he took a tumble down the steps. The old lay ahead. But he never took another drink. brown hat stayed on; but, wrapped up in that Ever the skeptical Yankee, Bill suspected long overcoat, he looked like a collapsed initially that his “hot flash” might have been sailboat on the subway platform. I recall how his nothing more than a hallucination associated face lit up when he fished out of the heap of with the d.t.‘s. He discussed this fear with the clothes an unbroken bottle of gin,” he hospital’s chief of staff, Dr. William D. Silkworth. reminisced. Silkworth, a neurologist, had already introduced At the time of Ebby’s visit, Bill was Bill to the idea, unorthodox at the time, that becoming violent and increasingly abusive; his alcoholism was a disease rather than a moral doctor suspected brain damage. For Bill, self- weakness. Now he affirmed that Bill had hate was the daily companion to the terror that undergone “some great psychic occurrence” and he and Lois felt. Ebby, on the other hand, looked advised him to hold on to it. and felt good. Rather hesitantly, he explained Life began anew for the Wilsons. They how he had stopped drinking. He didn’t really attended Oxford Group meetings and lived off expect to get through, but as Bill was to confess the small wages Lois was earning as a later, “In no waking moment could I get that man salesclerk in a Brooklyn department store. Bill or his message out of my head.” yearned to become the family’s breadwinner Bill continued, however, to drink. A once again, but he had always been the slave of month later, he was back in Charles B. Towns his own enthusiasm. Caught up in something, he hospital, an alcoholic rehabilitation center, for would give it all his considerable energies. the fourth time. Ebby paid him another visit Now Bill was consumed by the idea of a there. Bill asked him to repeat the “neat little movement of recovered alcoholics who would formula” that had enabled him to stop drinking; help their still-suffering fellows. He was Ebby did so “in perfectly good humor.” The convinced the message from Dr. Silkworth and process involved admitting that you were from Ebby T. could work for other alcoholics, beaten, getting honest with yourself, talking it too. Ebby’s message had been particularly our with somebody else, making restitution to effective. Ebby knew the hopelessness and the people you had harmed and praying to your blindness of alcoholism from the inside; surely own conception of a God. his empathy had enabled him to get through to Bill was, to say the least, uncomfortable Bill when nobody else–not even Lois–could. with the idea of a higher power, but he was in The first six months of Bill’s sobriety were spent the grip of a terrible depression–his pride could in enthusiastic but fruitless attempts to help no longer hold out against the danger and other alcoholics. Bill’s approach was almost disgrace drinking had brought upon him. exclusively spiritual. Finally, Dr. Silkworth, who Suddenly he found himself prepared to do was permitting him to speak to patients at “anything, anything at all.” Without faith or hope Towns, suggested bluntly that he “stop he cried, “If there be a God, let Him show preaching at drunks” and concentrate on the Himself!” medical facts instead. If an alcoholic could be

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told by another alcoholic that he had a serious At the invitation of Bob’s wife, Anne, Bill illness, that might do the trick. . . . stayed with the Smiths for the rest of his time in Bill did not put this advice into practice Akron. A month later, Bob took his last drink. immediately. A business opportunity intervened. Only weeks later Bob and Bill carried the He went to Akron to take part in a proxy voting message to another man, Bill D., a lawyer who battle for the control of the National Rubber had had to be tied to his hospital bed after he Machinery Company. The prize would be a had blackened the eyes of two nurses. Bill D. position as an officer in the company and a new found permanent sobriety. career. He was, after all, only 39, and great Through Bob and Bill’s efforts the selfthings still seemed possible. For a while, the help society began to grow. Bill was the pioneer, proxy solicitations went well, and victory the promoter and the organizer, but Bob was appeared to be in Bill’s grasp. Abruptly, unsurpassed at working personally with however, the tide turned in favor of the alcoholics. In the next few years, he would treat opposition. Bill’s past offered them an excellent thousands without charge–in addition to weapon they did not hesitate to use. The battle rebuilding his career as a surgeon. “It is difficult,” was lost. Bill’s associates returned to New York wrote a priest who worked with Bob, “to speak of and left him alone in Akron to salvage the Dr. Smith without going into eulogistic situation. superlatives. While he lived, he laughed them It was Friday afternoon, and Bill faced a off, and now, though [he is] dead, I feel he still weekend alone in a strange city. Lonely, and laughs them off.” A classmate from medical resentful over his defeat, he paced up and down school recalls a day near the end of Bob’s life in in the lobby of his hotel. At one end of his beat 1950. “One of the outstanding incidents of my was a bar, where the familiar buzz of a drinking life is the Sunday we spent with him at his home crowd offered comfort and conversation. Bill was in Akron. It was something like people coming to gripped by fear. He thought of his work with Lourdes–people he’d never seen or heard of. other alcoholics during the past six months. One was a dean of a large college in Ohio. Two Unsuccessful as it had been from their point of people who stand out in my memory were a view, the work had certainly kept him sober. lawyer and his wife. They had driven all the way Now he needed another alcoholic as much as from Detroit to tell him what he’d done for them that person needed him. through AA.” He called an Episcopal clergyman listed Two years after their first meeting, Bill on the church directory displayed in the lobby and Bob could count at least 40 sober and explained his situation as frankly as he alcoholics, some of them “very grim, last-gasp could. One call led to another, and by Sunday cases that had been sober a couple of years.” he found himself in the home of a young woman They realized the chain reaction they had member of the Oxford Group. She wanted him started could spread throughout the world. to speak to her friend, Dr. Robert Smith, who “What a tremendous realization that was!” Bill had recently confessed to being a drinker. Dr. wrote. “At last we were sure. There would be no Smith arrived at five that afternoon with his wife more flying totally blind.” and teen-age son in tow. Hung over, he While Bob continued to build the explained he could only stay 15 minutes. He fellowship in Akron, Bill began writing a book stayed six hours. (Alcoholic Anonymous: AA members call it “The Bob Smith’s drinking has been a serious Big Book”) about its methods and philosophy. problem since he had been at medical school. Until then AA’s message had been transmitted The suffering involved in maintaining a façade exclusively face-to-face. For a while, it seemed through the subsequent years had been that the potent magic of that message had been considerable. Fifty-five years old, he had by all lost in print–the book simply didn’t sell. Local accounts been an excellent doctor. Now, newspapers and word-of-mouth continued, however, his career was in ruin, and his financial however, to spread the news of hope for position desperate. alcoholics, and before long a steady trickle of orders began coming in.

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Then Jack Alexander began working on community. At this dinner, he asked his son an article about AA for The Saturday Evening Nelson to announce that he (John D.) was Post. Initially prepared to debunk the fellowship, donating only $1,000 and to explain that AA Alexander, after an exhaustive investigation, required little more in the way of financial became an enthusiastic believer. No sooner had assistance. The other guests followed suit-one his article appeared in the March 1, 1941, Post banker sent a check for $10! than the group’s small office in New York was Likewise, some members of the swamped with orders for the book and letters fellowship now began questioning whether they asking for assistance. Somehow, the staff (a really wanted a well-funded organization with a young woman, Ruth Hock) and volunteers powerful executive. AA had, after all, been (everybody else) managed to send a personal founded on the power and enthusiasm of the reply to each inquiry. Throughout North America individual. While the group debated this issue, (and indeed, the world) the Big Book took the the steady growth of the first years was place of the personal “sponsorship” that had suddenly overtaken by waves of new members brought sobriety to pre-1941 members. in the wake of the Post article. AA began to AA almost burst upon the world too soon. realize it enjoyed a fabulous amount of good will. At the time of the Post explosion, it had just It did not need Rockefeller. begun to develop its unique “corporate poverty” The issue of funding came to a head policy–without which it could not have attained when one-well-wisher left AA a legacy of its present power and importance. $10,000. After a lively discussion, the group Money had been a problem for Bill and made a unique decision. They would not accept Bob from the start. Both had spent their early it. “. . . [A]t the slightest intimation to the general years of sobriety in straitened circumstances. public from our Trustees that we needed money, When AA was three years old, Bill was offered we could become immensely rich. Compared to “an office, a decent drawing account and a very this prospect the $10,000 was not much, but like healthy slice of the profits” of Towns hospital in the alcoholic’s first drink, it would, if taken, exchange for “moving his work” into that inevitably set up a disastrous chain reaction. institution. Initially he was delighted, but other Where would that land us? Whoever pays the members of the New York group persuaded him piper calls the tune, and if the AA foundation to refuse. (Today, many AA members work as obtained money from outside sources, its paid alcoholism counselors–but in the Trustees might be tempted to run things without fellowship’s formative years salaries might have reference to the wishes of AA as a whole. Every been too heavy a strain on AA’s all-important alcoholic feeling relieved of responsibility would tradition of free and voluntary assistance.) shrug and say, ‘Oh the foundation is wealthy! Shortly after deciding to keep his AA work non- Why should I bother?’ The pressure of that fat professional, Bill lost his home. For the next two treasury would surely tempt the Board to do years he and Lois lived with friends and moved good with such funds, and so divert AA from its more than 50 times before they could afford their primary purpose.” As the result of this decision, own home. AA neither solicits nor accepts any outside Renouncing personal gain, Bill, however, contributions. Only members may contribute, clung to the idea that AA itself should be liberally and even they are asked not to donate more funded. He believed that AA should build a chain than $500 per year. of hospitals and mount a public education So Bill had avoided becoming the campaign. With these aims in mind, he and his president of yet another wealthy New York associates approached John D. Rockefeller, Jr., charitable foundation and became, instead, “the for financial assistance. Rockefeller dispatched greatest social architect of the century,” in an investigator to Akron. The report he received Aldous Huxley’s words. He died in relative made him a life-long supporter of the group–and obscurity in 1971. In the last part of his life, he a firm believer that money would spoil it. In avoided fame as assiduously as he had sought it 1940, he gave a dinner for AA and invited the earlier; he refused publicity and awards–a Time leading members of New York’s financial cover portrait, an honorary doctorate from Yale.

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Bill in particular was no stranger to the than one million people have found sobriety in lure of fame and wealth, but he had come to AA. That any single one of them is staying sober believe that seeking personal gain-including is in itself so unlikely, one must conclude that prestige-from the connection with AA would be the lives of each one of those men and women short-sighted. This belief lies at the heart of AA’s have been the product of synchronicity, or what all-important 12th tradition, which reads, some might call a miracle. “Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our Traditions, ever reminding us to place principles Baz Edmeades is a Canadian writer with before personalities.” legal training. He became interested in the history Appropriately enough, the Akron meeting and financial structure of Alcoholics Anonymous of Bill Wilson and Bob Smith had its origins in while researching the law of nonprofit corporations and associations for the province of Alberta, where the consulting rooms of Carl Jung, that great he lives. believer in synchronicity-“significant” coindidences. Today, 50 years after that meeting, more

Source: The Saturday Evening Post, August 1985

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