Alcoholics Anonymous (AA)

ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS (AA) - Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) was founded in 1935 by Bill Wilson (known as Bill W.) and Dr. Robert Smith (known as Dr. Bob).  In post-Prohibition 1930s America, it was common to perceive alcoholism as a moral failing, and the medical profession standards of the time treated it as a condition that was likely incurable and lethal.   Those without financial resources found help through state hospitals, the Salvation Army, or other charitable and religious groups.  Those who could afford psychiatrists or hospitals were subjected to a treatment with Barbiturate and Belladonna known as "purge and puke" or were left in long-term asylum treatment.

Wilson and Smith sought to develop a simple program to help even the worst alcoholics, along with a more successful approach that empathized with alcoholics yet convinced them of their hopelessness and powerlessness.  They believed active alcoholics were in a state of insanity rather than a state of sin.  To produce a spiritual conversion necessary for sobriety and sanity, alcoholics needed to realize that they couldn't conquer alcoholism by themselves—that surrendering to a higher power and working with another alcoholic were required.  Sober alcoholics could show drinking alcoholics that it was possible to enjoy life without alcohol, thus inspiring a spiritual conversion that would help ensure sobriety.

TWELVE STEPS:

Wilson decided that a summary of methods for treating alcoholism was needed to describe their "word of mouth" program. The basic program had developed from the works of William James, Dr. Silkworth, and the Oxford Group.  It included six basic steps:

• We admitted that we were licked, that we were powerless over alcohol.
• We made a moral inventory of our defects or sins.
• We confessed or shared our shortcomings with another person in confidence.
• We made restitution to all those we had harmed by our drinking.
• We tried to help other alcoholics, with no thought of reward in money or prestige.
• We prayed to whatever God we thought there was for power to practice these precepts.

Wilson decided that the six steps needed to be broken down into smaller sections to make them easier to understand and accept.   He wrote the Twelve Steps one night while lying in bed, which he felt was the best place to think. He prayed for guidance prior to writing, and in reviewing what he had written and numbering the new steps, he found they added up to twelve.  He then thought of the Twelve Apostles and became convinced that the program should have twelve steps.   With contributions from other group members, including atheists who reined in religious content (such as Oxford material) that could later result in controversy, by fall 1938 Wilson expanded the six steps into the final version of the Twelve Steps.

• We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable.
• Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
• Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
• Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
• Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
• Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
• Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
• Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
• Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
• Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
• Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
• Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.