The Mysterious Medicine of Alcoholics Anonymous (Condensed from Today’s Health, published by American Medical Assn.)

Paul DE Kruif

Twenty-five years ago, alcoholism was his depression deepen unbearably till at last it among the most hopeless of human afflictions. seemed as if he’d sunk to the bottom of the pit. The millions suffering from it were largely Suddenly he found himself crying out, “If untouchable by the science of medicine. Today there is a God, let Him show Himself! I’m ready there’s a reversal in their dreadful fate. More to do anything, anything!” than 250,000 ex-drunks are now leading normal All at once the room seemed lit up with a productive lives – many of them better citizens great white light. He was in ecstasy. It burst than those of us who can take it or leave it upon him that he was a free man, free from his alone. demon. All through him there was a wonderful This astounding victory had no medical feeling of a “Presence.” origin; the victims themselves were their own Then Bill became frightened. His doctors. Their medicine is not chemical. Their scientific education told him, “You’re curious weapons against alcoholic doom is an hallucinating. Better call a doctor.” It was utterly abject humility. They have one providential that he confided his vision to Dr. commander, not human, only God – God as William Duncan Silkworth, for many years each of them individually understand Him. physician-in-chief of the Charles B. Towns They have absolutely no organization Hospital in New York City. “Dr. Silky,” out of his and reject all outside donations. They follow a vast experience, knew well that there was no strict rule: the names of none of them must be medical hope whatever for most alcoholics and publicly known. Sacrifice and humility – these are this had stirred his compassion for down- andthe secrets of their death-fighting power. out-drunks. Such is the fellowship of Alcoholics “I’m crazy, Doc,” said Bill, in a panic. Dr. Anonymous. Silkworth probed him with questions. At last he In 1934 there was only one lone A.A. He said, “no, Bill, you’re not crazy. There’s been was a brilliant man as alcoholics often are, but some basic spiritual event here.” despite his brains he had fought a losing battle Bill now remembered a book he’d read against the bottle, often ending up literally in the in his search for a cure. It was The Varieties of gutter. He was on his way to commitment for Religious Experience, by the psychologist alcoholic. The beginning of the salvation of this William James. James taught that true religious “Mr. Bill,” as A.A.’s call him, was a spiritual experiences have a common denomination of mystery. He was befriended by a former drunk. pain, suffering, calamity, complete “Ebby,” who assured him that the one medicine hopelessness. This “deflation at depth” had to for alcoholics was a simple belief in God. A come, said James, before any victim was ready surrender to God: “Thy will, not mine, be done.” for God’s medicine. And that was exactly what What made Ebby a bit offbeat as a missionary had happened to Bill before his illumination. was that, although sober then, he could not stick Bill, nothing if not a promoter, now to his own medicine. He couldn’t stop drinking wanted to tell other alcoholics about his for good. experience. He envisioned beginning a chain Bill, a confirmed atheist himself, was reaction among them. “I started out after drunks hardly a candidate for Ebby’s theoretical on jet propulsion,” says Bill. “It was a kind of twin therapy. All he had was a desperate desire to -engine power drive – one part genuine stop drinking. Once, drying out in a hospital (he spirituality, and one part my old desire to be a knew this was a temporary expedient), Bill felt No.1 man, a big shot.”

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Bill’s drunk-fixing turned out to be a flop. they can’t, Dr. Tiebout saw, do they hit bottom. At the end of six months, none of the scores of Then they can choose: to go down to insanity or inebriates he’d tried to bring to see God had death – or to start up toward God. When they sobered up. “look, Bill,” said Dr. Silkworth, chose God, they don’t want to drink anymore. It “you’re having nothing but failure because you is as simple as that. are preaching at these alcoholics. You’ve got to “The miracle of A.A. was now clearer to deflate these people first. Give them the medical me,” says the doctor. “Hitting bottom became by business. Pour it into them about the sensitivity therapeutic goal with alcoholics.” of their bodies that condemns them to go mad or Bill and Bob and their converts counted die if they keep on drinking.” They’d listen if it more and more recoveries. By recovery they came from another alcoholic, Dr. Silky said. And meant sobriety, total, complete and permanent. then Bill might suggest the God medicine to After six years the number had mushroomed to them. more than 2000, and by the end of the seventh That got Bill his first convert, a physician year, to 8000. One reason for this astounding in Akron, Ohio – Dr. Bob. Then these two guys growth is, in the words of famed got busy working on others. That 1935 summer neuropsychiatrist Dr. Foster Kennedy, of New in Akron, out of many attempts, Bill and Dr. Bob York, “Every cured drunkard is a missionary to converted just one more alcoholic. The three of the sick. God having saved them, they thank them were the first group of A.A.’s. Him by doctoring others.” By 1939 Bill and Bob proudly counted a No A.A. need by anonymous to family, total of some 100 absolutely down-and-out friends or neighbors. But before the public drunks now dry. They presumed to write a book, press, radio, films and TV – the revelation of Alcoholics Anonymous, to celebrate this identity is not for them. Why? Bill explains it unparalleled achievement. The book was built simply. The A.A.’s are really a new kind of around what they called 12 steps leading to person. To gain enough humility to stay alive sobriety. We’ll boil them down: they have had to give up what have been Have a real desire to quit. characteristics common to most of them – Admit you can’t. (this is the hardest step.) excessive ambition and pride – and quit their Make a rigorous confession of personal defects. crazy contest for personal prestige. Anonymity is Resolve to help others. only another word for humility, the spiritual key Ask for God’s ever present help. to their way of life. Accept and acknowledge that help. Now members of the medical profession At first the medical profession was gave A.A. high praise, recognizing it as the real dubious about a method that seemed “in no treatment for alcoholics. And by thousands the sense scientific.” But more and more doctors doctors referred problem drinkers to Alcoholics began to come to the aid of Bill and his Anonymous. But where in the early days all exbibulous band. Distinguished psychiatrist Dr. recovered alcoholics had to begin at real bottom, Harry Tiebout, of Greenwich, Conn., had as strictly skid-row bums, now physicians began completely failed to cure alcoholics patients – to ask the A.A. brethren an embarrassing scientifically. Then one of his patients, a deeply question: “Just how deep is bottom? How do you alcoholic woman, came to him after her first A.A. recognize an early alcoholic? If we knew that, meeting: ” I think I have the answer. I’ll never we could begin to raise the bottom.” drink again, Doctor.” And she hasn’t. Bill explained that the first sign is a loss This woman and other recovered people of control of drinking. Many, perhaps most, told Dr. Tiebout of their accepting a higher people who drink have some experience with power – namely, God. But first, the A.A.’s taught intemperance. But the potential alcoholic them, they had to acknowledge their own realizes he’s beginning to get drunk at the wrong helplessness; they had to admit they’d hit time – when the consequences could be painfully bottom. The trouble with typical alcoholics is that damaging. Using this sign, physicians have they’re arrogantly sure they’ll lick this booze been able to discover incipient drunks by business” themselves. Not until they finally find thousands and thousands. Doctors tell such

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patients that the fact they haven’t yet lost their doors of the meeting places are always open for jobs doesn’t mean that they aren’t in danger, victims no matter how far gone. They try to lift up and send them to join a group of A.A.’s. all who fall, which many do. “It’s the doctors who now recruit a third Why has the fellowship insisted on of all our cases,” explains Bill. “That’s why we staying poor? number about 250,000 today.” And A.A. puts its “John D. Rockefeller, Jr., must be recovery rate at 75 per cent of all who sincerely thanked for that,” says Bill. “We once asked him try its treatment. for funds for hospitals and a big organization. With such as resounding success, how Mr., Rockefeller was deeply moved. But he said, does it happen that A.A. is still utterly without ‘I’m afraid money would spoil this thing.’ He organization? No hospitals, no paid trained rejected the plea flatly. experts. A.A. remains a loosely knit fellowship, An associate of Rockefeller had said, thousands of little groups of recovered drunks “Why, A.A. is first-century Christianity!” And of who meet constantly to sustain each other course we all know that that first-century against their number one enemy, alcohol. The Christians changed the world-without money

Source: Reader’s Digest, June 1960.

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