November 1976

You’ve heard about the Jack Alexander article all your AA life.. . But have you ever read it?

Publication of “Alcoholics Anonymous,” by Jack Alexander, in the Saturday Evening Post of March 1, 1941, marked a milestone in the history of this Fellowship. ANONYMOUS Although one national article had been published hPod Slaves ofDrink, Now 7hey F m Othem previously, the Post report on the first 2,000 men and women who had achieved sobriety through AA was largely responsible for the surge of interest that established the Society on a national and international basis. The article inspired a deluge of mail, which swamped the small New York office of AA. The response soon overtaxed what co-founder Bill W. described at the time as “a recently enlarged staff, now four.” Volunteer T HREE MEN sat around the bed of an alcoholic patient in the psychopathic ward of Philadelphia chanic. His visitors had been educated at Princeton, Yale, and Pemsylvania and were, by occupation, AAs and their wives were called in to help write personal a salesman, a lawyer, and a publicireplies to the 4,400 often-desperate inquiries that General Hospital one afternoon a few weeks ago. The man in the bed, ty man. Less than a year before, poured in between March and June of 1941. The Post one had been in shackles in the article tripled AA membership by the end of that year. who was a complete stranger to them, had the drawn and slightly same ward. One of his companions It increased the confidence of small, uncertain AA had been what is known among groups already in existence. The prestige and example stupid look that inebriates get while being defogged after a bender. alcoholics as a sanitarium com- , of the Post encouraged many newspapers to inform muter. He had moved from place their readers of this strange Fellowship of former The only thing that was noteworthy about the callers, except for the to place, bedeviling the staffs of drunks who helped other alcoholics stay sober. the country’s leading institutions In 1941, over half of our present 1,000,000 members obvious contrast between their for the treatment of alcoholics. were teenagers, children – or not even born. Old-timers well-groomed appearances and The other had spent twenty years or newcomers, virtually all of us owe a debt of gratitude that of the patient, was the fact that each had been through the of life, all outside institution walls, to Jack Alexander, who died in 1975. His talent, dili- making life miserable for himself gence, and insight focused the first strong favorable defogging process many times himlight on AA. Jack remained a lifelong friend of the self. They were members of Alco- and his family and his employers, Fellowship, serving eventually as a nonalcoholic holics Anonymous, a band of ex- as well as sundry well-meaning trustee on AA’s General Service Board. ‘ problem drinkers who made an relatives who had had the temerity avocation of helping other alcohol- to intervene. ics to beat the liquor habit. The air of the ward was thick with The man in the bed was a me- the aroma of paraldehyde, an un-

pleasant cocktail smelling like a ble, and it remains one of the great and the haunting fear that possibly relatives. Over this connection, the mixture of alcohol and ether which unsolved public-health enigmas. they had run down someone with troubleshooters convey, bit by bit, hospitals sometimes use to taper By nature touchy and suspicious, their automobiles. the details of a program for living off the paralyzed drinker and the alcoholic likes to be left alone They tell of the eight-ounce bot- which has worked for them and soothe his squirming nerves. The to work out his puzzle, and he has tles of gin hidden behind pictures which, they feel, can work for any visitors seemed oblivious of this a convenient way of ignoring the and in caches from cellar to attic; of other alcoholic. They concede as out and of the depressing atmosphere tragedy which he inflicts mean- spending whole days in motion- of their orbit only those who are that clings to even the nicest of while upon those who are close to picture houses t o stave off the temp- psychotic or who are already sufferpsychopathic wards. They smoked him. He holds desperately to a con- tation to drink; of sneaking out of ing from the physical impairment and talked with the patient for viction that, although he has not the office for quickies during the known as wet brain. At the same twenty minutes or so, then left been able to handle alcohol in the day. They talk of losing jobs and time, they see to it that the prospect their personal cards and departed. past, he will ultimately succeed in stealing money from their wives’ gets whatever medical attention is If the man in the bed felt that he becoming a controlled drinker. One purses; of putting pepper into whis- needed. would like to see one of them again, of medicine’s queerest animals, he key to give it a tang; of tippling on Many doctors and staffs of instithey told him, he had only to put in is, as often as not, an acutely intelli- bitters and sedative tablets, or on tutions throughout the country now a telephone call. gent person. He fences with profes- mouthwash or hair tonic; of getting suggest Alcoholics Anonymous t o They made it plain that if he actu- sional men and relatives who at- into the habit of camping outside their drinking patients. In some ally wanted to stop drinking, they tempt to aid him, and he gets a per- the neighborhood tavern ten min- towns, the courts and probation would leave their work or get up in verse satisfaction out of tripping utes before opening time. They de- officers cooperate with the local , the middle of the night t o hurry t o them up in argument. scribe a hand so jittery that it could group. In a few city psychopathic where he was. If he did not choose There is no specious excuse for not lift a pony to the lips without divisions, the workers of Alcoholics to call, that would be the end of it. drinking which the troubleshooters spilling the contents; drinking liquor Anonymous are accorded the same The members of Alcoholics Anony- o f Alcoholics Anonymous have not from a beer stein because it can be visiting privileges as staff members. mous d o not pursue or coddle a heard or used themselves. When steadied with two hands, although Philadelphia General is one of malingering prospect, and they one of their prospects hands them a at the risk of chipping a front tooth; these. Dr. John F. Stouffer, the know the strange tricks of the alco- rationalization for getting soused, tying an end of a towel about a chief psychiatrist, says: “The alcoholic as a reformed swindler knows they match it with half a dozen out glass, looping the towel around the holics we get here are mostly those the art of bamboozling. of their own experiences. This up- back of the neck, and drawing the who cannot afford private treat- Herein lies much of the unique sets him a little, and he gets defen- free end with the other hand, pulley ment, and this is by far the greatest strength of a movement which, in sive. He looks at their neat clothing fashion, to advance the glass to the thing we have ever been able to offer the past six years, has brought re- and smoothly shaved faces and mouth; hands so shaky they feel as them. Even among those who occacovery t o around 2,000 men and charges them with being goody- if they were about to snap off and sionally land back in here again, we women, a large percentage of whom goodies who don’t know what it is fly into space; sitting on hands for observe a profound change in perhad been considered medically to struggle with drink. They reply hours to keep them from doing this. sonality. You would hardly hopeless. Doctors and clergymen, by relating their own stories: the These and other bits of drinking recognize them.” working separately o r together, double Scotches and brandies lore usually manage to convince the The Illinois Medical Journal, in have always managed t o salvage a before breakfast; the vague feeling alcoholic that he is talking to blood an editorial last December, went few cases. In isolated instances, of discomfort which precedes a ‘ brothers. A bridge of confidence is further than Dr. Stouffer, in drinkers have found their own drinking bout; the awakening from thereby erected, spanning a gap stating: “It is indeed a miracle when methods of quitting. But the inroads a spree without being able to ac- which has baffled the physician, the a person who for years has been into alcoholism have been negligi- count for the actions of several days minister, the priest, or the hapless more or less constantly under the

nonalcoholic individuals. Their Cleveland, with more than 450 that at any minute they may transformation from cop fighters. members, is the biggest of the AA thoughtlessly take one drink and canned-heat drinkers, and, in some centers [1941]. The next largest are skyrocket off on a disastrous binge. instances, wife beaters, was located in Chicago, Akron, Phila- An AA who is a clerk in an Eastern startling. On one of the most delphia, Los Angeles, Washington, city hasn’t had a snifter in three and . influential newspapers in the and New York. All told, there are a half years, but says that he still has country, I found that the city editor, groups in about fifty cities and to walk fast past saloons to circumthe assistant city editor, and a towns. [In 1976, there are almost vent the old impulse; but he is an nationally known reporter were 28,000 groups worldwide, in ninety- exception. The only hangover from AAs, and strong in the confidence two countries.] the wild days that plagues the AA is of their publisher. In discussing their work, the AAs a recurrent nightmare. In the In another city, I heard a judge spoke of their drunk-rescuing as dream, he finds himself off on a parole a drunken driver to an AA “insurance” for themselves. Expe- rousing whooper-dooper, franticalinfluence of alcohol and in whom member. The latter, during his rience withiri the group has shown, ly trying to conceal his condition his friends have lost all confidence, drinking days, had smashed several they said, that once a recovered from the community. Even this will sit up all night with a drunk and cars and had had his own operator’s drinker slows up in this work, he is symptom disappears shortly, in at stated intervals administer a small license suspended. The judge knew likely to go back to drinking most cases. Surprisingly, the rate of amount of liquor in accordance with him and was glad to trust him. A himself. There is, they agreed, no employment among these people, a doctor’s order without taking a brilliant executive of an advertising such thing as an ex-alcoholic. If one who formerly drank themselves out drop himself.” firm disclosed that two years ago he is an alcoholic-that is, a person of job after job, is said to be around This is a reference to a common had been panhandling and sleeping who is unable to drink nor- ninety percent. aspect of the Arabian Nights in a doorway under an elevated mally-one remains an alcoholic One-hundred-percent effectiveadventures to which Alcoholics structure. H e had a favorite until he dies, just as a diabetic ness with nonpsychotic drinkers Anonymous workers dedicate them- doorway, which he shared with remains a diabetic. The best he can who sincerely want to quit is selves. Often it involves sitting other vagrants, and every few weeks hope for is to become an arrested claimed by the workers of Alcoholupon, as well as up with, the intox- he goes back and pays them a visit case, with drunk-saving as his insu- ics Anonymous. The program will icated person, as the impulse to just to assure himself he isn’t lin. At least, the AAs say so, and not work, they add, with those who jump out a window seems to be an dreaming. medical opinion tends to support only “want to want to quit,” or attractive one to many alcoholics In Akron, as in other manufac- them. All but a few said that they who want to quit because they are when in their cups. Only an alco- turing centers, the groups include a had lost all desire for alcohol. Most afraid of losing their families or holic can squat on another alcohol- heavy element of manual workers. serve liquor in their homes when their jobs. The effective desire, they ic’s chest for hours with the proper In the Cleveland Athletic Club, 1 friends drop in, and they still go to state, must be based upon enlightcombination of discipline and had luncheon with five lawyers, an bars with companions who drink. ened self-interest; the applicant sympathy. accountant, an engineer, three sales- The AAs tipple on soft drinks and must want to get away from liquor During a recent trip around the men, an insurance man, a buyer, a coffee. to head off incarceration or prema- East and Middle West, 1 met and bartender, a chain-store manager, One, a sales manager, acts as bar- ture death. He must be fed up with talked with scores of AAs, as they a manager of an independent store, tender at his company’s annual jam- the stark social loneliness which call themselves, and found them to and a manufacturer’s representa- boree in Atlantic City and spends engulfs the uncontrolled drinker, be unusually calm, tolerant people. tive. They were members of a cen- his nights tucking the celebrators and he must want to put some order Somehow, they seemed better inte- tral committee which coordinates the into their beds. Only a few of those into his bungled life. grated than the average group of work of nine neighborhood groups. who recover fail to lose the feeling As it is impossible to disqualify . \

all borderline applicants, the working percentage of recovery falls below the 100-percent mark. “. .. he tells himself. . . that he can really become a controlled drinker if he wants to.” According to AA estimation, fifty post-office box. The only income, percent of the alcoholics taken in which is money received from the Frequently, the situation is com- demonstrate his strength of will, he hand recover almost immediately; sale of a book describing the work, plicated by an off-center home at- goes for weeks without taking a twenty-five percent get well after is handled by the Alcoholic Founda- mosphere in which one parent is un- drop. He makes a point of calling at suffering a relapse or two; and the tion, a board composed of three al- duly cruel, the other overindulgent. his favorite bar at a certain time rest remain doubtful. This rate of coholics and four nonalcoholics. Any combination of these factors, each day and ostentatiously sipping success is exceptionally high. Statis- [The present-day equivalent is the plus a divorce or two, tends to pro- milk or a carbonated beverage, not tics on traditional medical and reli- General Service Board, comprising duce neurotic children who are realizing that he is indulging in gious cures are lacking, but it has seven nonalcoholic and fourteen poorly quipped emotionally to face juvenile exhibitionism. Falsely enbeen informally estimated that they alcoholic trustees. Income is now the ordinary realities of adult life. In couraged, he shifts to a routine of are no more than two or three per- derived from group and individual seeking escapes, one may immerse one beer a day, and that is the begincent effective on run-of-the-mine contributions and from sales of himself in his business, working ning of the end once more. Beer cases. books, booklets, pamphlets, the twelve to fifteen hours a day, or in leads inevitably to more baer and Although it is too early to state Grapevine, and various types of ser- sports or in some artistic sideline. then to hard liquor. Hard liquor that Alcoholics Anonymous is the definitive answer to alcoholism, its vice material.] … Another finds what he thinks is a leads to another first-rate bender. pleasant escape in drink. It bolsters Oddly, the trigger which sets off the Why some people become alco- his opinion of himself and tempo- explosion is as apt to be a stroke of brief record is impressive, and it is holics is a question on which authorreceiving hopeful support. John D. rarily wipes away any feeling of business success as it is to be a run ities disagree. Few think that anyone Rockefeller Jr. helped defray the ex- is “born an alcoholic.” One may be social inferiority which he may of bad luck. An alcoholic can stand pense of getting it started and has born, they say, with an hereditary have. Light drinking leads to heavy neither prosperity nor adversity. drinking. Friends and family are The victim is puzzled on coming gone out of his way to get other predisposition to alcoholism, just as out of the alcoholic fog. Without his prominent men interested. one may be born with a vulnerabil- alienated and employers become Rockefeller’s gift was a small one, ity to tuberculosis. The rest seems to disgusted. The drinker smolders being aware of any change, a habit in deference to the insistence of the depend upon environment and with resentment and wallows in self- has gradually become an obsession. originators that the movement be pity. He indulges in childish ratio- After a while, he no longer needs his experience, although one theory has nalizations to justify his drinking: rationalizations to justify the fatal kept on a voluntary, nonpaid basis. it that some people are allergic to al- There are no salaried organizers, no He has been working hard and he first drink. All he knows is that he cohol, as hayfever sufferers are to dues, no officers, and no central pollens. Only one note is found to deserves to relax; his throat hurts feels swamped by uneasiness or elacontrol. Locally, the rents of assem- be common to all alcoholics-em* from an old tonsillectomy and a tion, and before he realizes what is bly halls are met by passing the hat tional immaturity. Closely related to drink would ease the pain; he has a happening, he is standing at a bar at meetings. In small communities, headache; his wife does not under- with an empty whiskey pony in this is an observation that an un- stand him; his nerves are jumpy; front of him and a stimulating senno collections are taken, as the usually large number of alcoholics gatherings are held in private start out in life as an only child, as a everybody is against him; and so on sation in his throat. By some homes. A small office in downtown younger child, as the only boy in a and on. He unconsciously becomes peculiar quirk of his mind, he has New York acts merely as a clear- family of girls or the only girl in a a chronic excuse-maker for himself. been able to draw a curtain over the inghouse for information. There is family of boys. Many have records All the time he is driaking, he tells memory of the intense pain and reno name on the door, and mail is of childhood precocity and were himself and those who butt into his morse caused by preceding stemreceived anonymously through a what are known as spoiled children. affairs that he can really become a winders. After many experiences of controlled drinker if he wants to. To this kind, the alcoholic begins to —

realize that he does not understand have stolen while intoxicated and neurotics from being exposed to himself; he wonders whether his arranges to pay off old debts and to drinking excesses over a period of power of will, though strong in make good on rubber checks; he years. Reeducation of the family is other fields, isn’t defenseless against makes amends to persons he has an essential part of a follow-up proalcohol. He may go on trying to de- abused and, in general, cleans up his gram which has been devised. feat his obsession and wind up in a past as well as he is able to. It is not Alcoholics Anonymous, which is sanitarium. He may give up the uncommon for his sponsors to lend a synthesis of old ideas rather than a fight as hopeless and try to kill him- him money to help out in the early new discovery, owes its existence to had lost out on his main chances. self. Or he may seek outside help. stages. the collaboration of a New York Five months before coming to If he applies to Alcoholics This catharsis is regarded as im- stockbroker and an Akron physi- Akron, he had gone on the water Anonymous, he is first brought portant because of the compulsion cian. Both alcoholics, they met for wagon through the ministrations of around to admit that alcohol has which a feeling of guilt exerts in the the first time a little less than six the Oxford Group in New York. him whipped and that his life has alcoholic obsession. As nothing years ago. In thirty-five years of Fascinated by the problem of alcobecome unmanageable. Having tends to push an alcoholic toward periodic drinking, Dr. Armstrong, holism, he had many times gone achieved this state of intellectual hu- the bottle more than personal re- to give the physician a fictitious back as a visitor to a Central Park mility, he is given a dose of religion sentments, the pupil also makes out name, had drunk himself out of West detoxicating hospital, where in its broadest sense. He is asked to a list of his grudges and resolves not most of his practice. Armstrong had he had been a patient, and talked to believe in a Power that is greater to be stirred by them. At this point, tried everything, including the the inmates. He effected no recoverthan himself, or at least to keep an he is ready to start working on Oxford Group, and had shown no ies, but found that by working on open mind on that subject while he other, active alcoholics. By the improvement. On Mother’s Day, other alcoholics he could stave off goes on with the rest of the pro- process of extroversion, which the 1935, he staggered home, in typical his own craving. drunk fashion, lugging an expensive A stranger in Akron, Griffith gram. Any concept of the Higher work entails, he is able to think less Power is acceptable. A skeptic or of his own troubles. potted plant, which he placed in his knew no alcoholics with whom he agnostic may choose to think of his The more drinkers he succeeds in wife’s lap. Then he went upstairs could wrestle. A church directory, and passed out. which hung in the lobby opposite inner self, the miracle of growth, a swinging into Alcoholics Anonytree, man’s wonderment at the mous, the greater his responsibility At that moment, nervously pac- the bar, gave him an idea. He telephysical universe, the structure of to the group becomes. He can’t get ing the lobby of an Akron hotel phoned one of the clergymen listed the atom, or mere mathematical in- drunk now without injuring the peo- was the broker from New York, and through him got in touch with a finity. Whatever form is visualized, ple who have proved themselves his whom we shall arbitrarily call member of the local Oxford Group. the neophyte is taught that he must best friends. He is beginning to Griffith. Griffith was in a jam. In This person was a friend of Dr. rely upon it and, in his own way, grow up emotionally and to quit an attempt to obtain control of a Armstrong’s and was able to pray to the Power for strength. being a leaner. If raised in an ortho- company and rebuild his financial introduce the physician and the bro- He next makes a sort of moral dox church, he usually, but not fences, he had come out to Akron ker at dinner. In this manner, Dr. inventory of himself with the private always, becomes a regular commu- and engaged in a fight for proxies. Armstrong became Griffith’s first aid of another person-one of his nicant again. He had lost the fight. His hotel bill real disciple. He was a shaky one at AA sponsors, a priest, a minister, a Simultaneously with the making was unpaid. He was almost flat first. After a few weeks of abstipsychiatrist, or anyone else he broke. Griffith wanted a drink. nence, he went East to a medical over of the alcoholic goes the rofancies. If it gives him any relief, he may get up at a meeting and recite cess of adjusting his family to is5, new way of living. The wife or hus- During his career in Wall Street, convention and came home in a Griffith had turned some sizable liquid state. Griffith, who had his misdeeds, but he is not required band of an alcoholic, and the chil- deals and had prospered, but, stayed in Akron to iron out some to d o so. He restores what he may dren, too, frequently become through ill-timed drinking bouts, legal tangles arising from the proxy

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battle, talked him back to sobriety. carry the extra expense. The Arm- tians, they have moved about, Cleveland newspaperman with a That was on June 10,1935. The nips strongs, nevertheless, carried on, on finding shelter in the homes of AA surgically collapsed lung moved to the physician took from a bottle borrowed money. Griffith, who had colleagues and sometimes wearing Houston for his health. He got a job proffered by Griffith on that day borrowed clothing. on a Houston paper and, through a a Spartan wife, too, turned his were the last drinks he ever took. Brooklyn home into a duplicate of Having got something started, series of articles which he wrote for Griffith’s lawsuits dragged on, the Akron minage. Mrs. Griffith, a both the prime movers want to retire it, started an AA unit which now holding him over in Akron for six member of an old Brooklyn family, to the fringe of their movement and has thirty-five members. One Housmonths. He moved his baggage to took a job in a department store and spend more time getting back on ton member has moved to Miami the Armstrong home, and together in her spare time played nurse to their feet financially. They feel that and is now laboring to snare some the pair struggled with other alco- inebriates. The Griffiths also bor- the way the thing is set up, it is of the more eminent winter-colony holics. Before Griffith went back to rowed, and Griffith managed to virtually self-operating and self- lushes. A Cleveland traveling sales- New York, two more Akron make odd bits of money around the multiplying. Because of the absence man is responsible for starting small converts had been obtained. Mean- brokerage houses. By the spring of of figureheads and the fact that units in many different parts of the while, both Griffith and Dr. Arm- 1939, the Armstrongs and the there is no formal body of belief to country. Fewer than half of the AA promote, they have no fears that members have ever seen Griffith or strong had withdrawn from the Oxford Group, because they felt that Griffiths had between them cozened about one hundred alcoholics into Alcoholics Anonymous will degen- Dr. Armstrong. .. For [these] alcoholics, congenial its aggressive evangelism and some sobriety. erate into a cult. of its other methods were hin- The self-starting nature of the company is now available wherever In a book which they published at drances in working with alcoholics. that time, the recovered drinkers de- movement is apparent from letters they happen to be. In the larger They put their own technique on a scribed the cure program and in the files of the New York office. cities, AAs meet one another daily strict take-it-or-leave-it basis and related their personal stories. The Many persons have written in saying at lunch in favored restaurants. The kept it there. title was Alcoholics Anonymous. It that they stopped drinking as soon Cleveland groups give big parties on Progress was slow. After Griffith was adopted as a name for the as they read the book, and made New Year’s and other holidays, at had returned East, Dr. Armstrong movement itself, which up to then their homes meeting places for small which gallons of coffee and soft and his, wife, a Wellesley graduate, had none. As the book got into cir- local chapters. Even a fairly large drinks are consumed. Chicago holds converted their home into a free culation, the movement spread unit, in Little Rock, got started in open house on Friday, Saturday, refuge for alcoholics and an experi- rapidly. this way. An Akron civil engineer and Sunday-alternately, on the mental laboratory for the study of Today (19411, Dr. Armstrong is and his wife, in gratitude for his North, West, and South Sides-so the guests’ behavior. One of the still struggling to patch up his prac- cure four years ago, have been that no lonesome AA need revert to guests, who, unknown to his hosts, tice. The going is hard. He is in debt steadily taking alcoholics into their liquor over the weekend for lack of was a manic depressive as well as an because of his contributions to the home. Out of thirty-five such companionship. Some play cribbage alcoholic, ran wild one night with a wards, thirty-one have recovered. or bridge, the winner of each hand movement and the time he devotes kitchen knife. He was overcome gratis to alcoholics. Being a pivotal Twenty pilgrims from Cleveland contributing to a kitty for paying of before he had stabbed anyone. man in the group, he is unable to caught the idea in Akron and entertainment expenses. The others After a year and a half, a t3tal of turn down the requests for help returned home to start a group of listen to the radio, dance, eat, or ten persons had responded to the which flood his office. their own. From Cleveland, by just talk. All alcoholics, drunk or program and were abstaining. What Griffith is even deeper in the hole. various means, the movement has sober, like to gab. They are among was left of the family savings had For the past two years, he and his spread to Chicago, Detroit, St. the most society-loving people in the gone into the work. The physician’s wife have had no home in the ordi- Louis, Los Angeles, Indianapolis, world, which may help to explain new sobriety caused a revival in his nary sense of the word. In a manner Atlanta, San Francisco, Evansville, why they got to be alcoholics in the practice, but not enough of one to reminiscent of the primitive Chris- and other cities. An alcoholic first place.