THE BIRTH OF
ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS
G'day folks,
The last thing America’s “Doctor Bob” would have wanted is for anyone to toast his success – even though it was considerable. He himself took his last drink on June 10 1935 – a glass of beer – and one
of the best-known self-help groups in the world, Alcoholics Anonymous,
began its journey.
Born Robert Holbrook Smith at Vermont in 1879, he graduated as a medical
doctor from Dartmouth College in New Hampshire at the age of 21. But he
had started drinking and became known among students for being able to
down a whole bottle of beer without his Adam’s apple moving.
After Dartmouth Smith enrolled in medical school at the University of
Michigan and then attended the Rush Medical School in Chicago to
complete his training. But his drinking had become compulsive and was
affecting his professional medical competence.
He thought a change of air might help and he moved to Akron, Ohio. There
he went into private practice as a surgeon specialising in colorectal
surgery. And he married his high school sweetheart, Anne Robinson
Ripley.
But Smith was drinking heavily again and according to one report he
could not operate on a patient without a few drinks first. Over the next
17 years, he attended over 12 different sanitariums and hospitals in
attempts to get sober.
No solution to the problem presented itself until in 1935 Smith met Bill
Wilson, a businessman from New York who had faced the same struggle for
many years. The two men formed an immediate bond and began searching
for ways to solve their joint problem.
They became certain that alcoholism could only be conquered if fellow
drinkers offered their support. And that could work only if people
shared their fight anonymously. So, with the first self-help group set
up in Akron, Smith became “Doctor Bob” and Wilson took the name “Bill
W”.
And when Smith drank his last glass of beer on June 10, 1935,
with Wilson as a witness, this is generally seen as the official
founding date for Alcoholics Anonymous. Smith was sober from then until
he died from colon cancer in 1950, aged 71.
Alcoholics Anonymous was and still is by far the best-known self-help
group in the world. The organisation has never attempted to keep formal
membership records but it is estimated that the number of people
involved globally exceeds two million.
Clancy's comment: My father was a member for 35 years!
I'm ...
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