May 1945

JACK ALEXANDER OF SATEKEPOST FAME THOUGHT A.A.s WERE PULLING HIS LEG

Ordinarily, diabetes isn’t rated as introduced himself as an alcoholic who at the fringe of the movement, still one of the hazards of reporting, but the had gone “dry,” as the official expression fragrant of liquor and needing a shave. Alcoholics Anonymous article in the has it. They were good-looking and well- Now I knew I was among a few genuine Saturday Evening Post came close to dressed and, as we sat around drinking alcoholics anyway. The bearded, fumecosting me my liver, and maybe A.A. Coca-Cola (which was all they would breathing lads were A.A. skeptics, too, neophytes ought to be told this when take), they spun yarns about their and now I had some company. they are handed copies of the article to horrendous drinking misadventures. The The week spent with Bill W. was a read. It might impress them. In the stories sounded spurious, and after the success from one standpoint. I knew I course of my fact gathering, I drank visitors had left, I had a strong suspicion had the makings of a readable report but, enough Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola, ginger that my leg was being pulled. They had unfortunately, I didn’t quite believe it and ale, Moxie and Sweetie to float the behaved like a bunch of actors being told Bill so. He asked why I didn’t look in Saratoga. Then there was the thickly sent out by some Broadway casting on A.A.s in other cities and see what frosted cake so beloved of A.A. agency. went on there. I agreed to this, and we gatherings, and the heavily sweetened Next morning I took the subway to mapped out an itinerary. I went to coffee, and the candy. Nobody can tell the headquarters of Alcoholics Philadelphia first, and some of the local me that alcoholism isn’t due solely to an Anonymous in downtown Manhattan, A.A.s took me to the psychopathic ward abnormal craving for sugar, not even a where I met Bill W. This Bill W. is a very of Philadelphia General Hospital and learned psychiatrist. Otherwise the A.A. disarming guy and an expert at showed me how they worked on the assignment was a pleasure. indoctrinating the stranger into the alcoholic inmates. In that gloomy place, It began when the Post asked me psychology, psychiatry, physiology, it was an impressive thing to see men to look into A.A. as a possible article pharmacology and folklore of alcoholism. who had bounced in and out of the ward subject. All I knew of alcoholism at the He spent the good part of a couple of themselves patiently jawing a man who time was that, like most other non- days telling me what it was all about. It was still haggard and shaking from a ‘ alcoholics, Ihad had my hand bitten (and was an interesting experience, but at the binge that wound up in the gutter. my nose punched) on numerous end of it my fingers were still crossed. He Akron was the next stop. Bill met occasions by alcoholic pals to whom I knew it, of course, without my saying it, me there and promptly introduced me to had extended a hand – unwisely, it and in the days that followed he took me Doc S., who is another hard man to always seemed afterward. Anyway, I had to the homes of some of the A.A.s, disbelieve. There were more hospital an understandable skepticism about the where I got a chance to talk to the wives, visits, an A.A. meeting, an interview with whole business. too. My skepticism suffered a few minor people who a year or two before were My first contact with actual A.A.s scratches, but not enough to hurt. Then undergoing varying forms of the blind came when a group of four of them Bill shepherded me to a few A.A. staggers. Now they seemed calm, wellcalled at my apartment one afternoon. meetings at a clubhouse somewhere in spoken, steady-handed and prosperous, This session was pleasant, but it didn’t the West Twenties. Here were all manner at least mildly prosperous. help my skepticism any. Each one of alcoholics, many of them, the nibblers

Doc S. drove us both from Akron I guess the letters will keep to Cleveland one night and the same coming in for years, and I hope they do, pattern was repeated. The universality of because now I know that every one of alcoholism was more apparent here. In them springs from a mind, either of an Akron it had been mostly factory workers. alcoholic or of someone close to him, In Cleveland there were lawyers, which is undergoing a type of hell that accountants and other professional men, Dante would have gagged at. And I in addition to laborers. And again the know, too, that this victim is on the way same stories. The pattern was repeated to recovery, if he really wants to recover. also in Chicago, the only variation there There is something very particularly in a being the presence at the meeting of a world which has been struggling toward number of newspapermen. I had spent peace for centuries without ever most of my working life on newspapers achieving it for very long periods of time. and I could really talk to these men. The Jack Alexander real clincher, though, came in St. Louis, The Saturday Evening Post which is my hometown. Here I met a Philadelphia, Pa. number of my own friends who were A.A.s, and the last remains of skepticism vanished. Once rollicking rumpots, they were now sober. It didn’t seem possible, but there it was. When the article was published, the reader-mail was astonishing. Most of it came from desperate drinkers or their wives, or from mothers, fathers or interested friends. The letters were forwarded to the A.A. office in New York and from there were sent on to A.A. groups nearest the writers of the letters. I don’t know exactly how many letters came in, all told, but the last time i checked, a year or so ago, it was around 6,000. They still trickle in from time to time, from people who have carried the article in their pockets all this time, or kept it in the bureau drawer under the handkerchief case intending to do something about it.