May 12, 1935: First Meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous

The success of Alcoholics Anonymous is due in large measure to its 12 Traditions which I have reprinted below. The Steps are for personal recovery and the traditions are for the group. The degree to which clerics in the Roman Catholic Church abandon (1) the humility of anonymity for the accolades of public acclaim, and (2) the singleness of purpose in the Great Commission for the false gospel of liberal progressive democracy is the degree to which the Roman Catholic Church fails. AA’s traditions are based on twin ideals that (1) anonymity is its spiritual foundation, reminding it to place principles before personalities, and (2) its primary purpose is to carry the message to the suffering alcoholic. The Roman Catholic Church needs to get back to those ideals – (1) the principle of Jesus Christ before human personalites and (2) the priinciple of carrying the message of repentance to the sinner bound for hell – if it is ever to continue intact in this neo-pagan, post-modern day and age.
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By the way, Bill Wilson wrote in one of his books – I forgot which one – that he had based the 12 Steps and 12 Traditions on (a) Jesus’ Beatitudes in Matthew chapter 6, (b) St Paul’s discourse on love in 1st Corinthians 13 and (c) St James’ theology of faith without works being dead in his epistle. I have found the steps and traditions to be quite Catholic. Imagine the 4th and 5th steps of moral inventory being confession and the 8th and 9th steps of making amends being penance. And the whole idea of the humility inherent in anonymity is something that perhaps one of the midieval Saints may have first proposed.
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Now here are the Traditions. Read them and consider how strong the Church could be if it adopted them – things like being self-supporting instead of accepting government money and having no opinion on outside issues like global warming.
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1. Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon A.A. unity.
2. For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority—a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.
3. The only requirement for A.A. membership is a desire to stop drinking.
4. Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or A.A. as a whole.
5. Each group has but one primary purpose—to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers.
6. An A.A. group ought never endorse, finance, or lend the A.A. name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property, and prestige divert us from our primary purpose.
7. Every A.A. group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions.
8. Alcoholics Anonymous should remain forever non-professional, but our service centers may employ special workers.
9. A.A., as such, ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve.
10. Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the A.A. name ought never be drawn into public controversy.
11. Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, and films.
12. Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.

Greg,
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I agree with you and this is how I would apply those traditions – it’s a first stab and others will disagree with me, which is ok. I would just like to see the real Gospel of conversion and repentance preached for a change instead of all the luvy duvy liberal progressive eco-wacko social justice peace at any price nonsense going on:
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1. Our common welfare should come first; recovery from sin depends upon Church unity.
2. For Church purpose there is but one ultimate authority—a loving God as He may express Himself in our Church conscience. Our bishops, priests and deacons are trusted servants (diakonoi) and shepherds (pastores).
3. The only requirement for Church membership is a desire to stop sinning – repentance and baptism.
4. Each local Church may be autonomous except in matters affecting other local Churches or the Church Universal.
5. Each local Church has but one primary purpose—to carry its message to the sinner bound for hell.
6. The Church ought never endorse, finance, or lend the Catholic name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property, and prestige divert us from our primary purpose.
7. The Church ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions (e.g., from government and major corporations).
8. The Church should remain forever non-professional (it’s not a hospital or a university), but Church members may run outside organizations such as schools and hospitals, employing special workers, and perform special work of charity in education, medicine and related fields.
9. The Church is organized as the Body of Christ with Christ as its head.
10. The Church has no opinion on outside issues (e.g., global warming, partisan politics, economics, etc); hence the Church name ought never be drawn into public controversy.
11. The Church’s public relations policy is based on attraction to Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God, rather than promotion of famous clerics and laity; we need always maintain personal humiility at every level.
12. Humility is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.

Not as good as the Sacrament of Penance but acceptable.

BTW, what film does that clip come from?

John Ford, S.J. an important moralist of the mid 20th century and an alcoholic was involved in the founding moments of the AA.

William P. Walsh,
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You stated: “As to why I can drink without going overboard and others cannot is not due to anything superior on my part.” The Doctor’s Opinion starting on page xiii in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous may explain this phenomenon:
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WE OF Alcoholics Anonymous believe that the reader will be interested in the medical estimate of the plan of recovery described in this book. Convincing testimony must surely come from medical men who have had experience with the sufferings of our members and have witnessed our return to health. A well-known doctor, chief physician at a nationally prominent hospital specializing in alcoholic and drug addiction, gave Alcoholics Anonymous this letter:
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To Whom It May Concern:
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I have specialized in the treatment if alcoholism for many years.
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In late 1934 I attended a patient who, though he had been a competent businessman of good earning capacity, was an alcoholic of a type I had come to regard as hopeless.
In the course of his third treatment he acquired certain ideas concerning a possible means of recovery. As part of his rehabilitation he commenced to present his conceptions to other alcoholics, impressing upon them that they must do likewise with still others. This has become the basis of a rapidly growing fellowship of these men and their families. This man and over one hundred others appear to have recovered.
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I personally know scores of cases who were of the type with whom other methods had failed completely.
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These facts appear to be of extreme medical importance; because of the extraordinary possibilities of rapid growth inherent in this group they may mark a new epoch in the annals of alcoholism. These men may well have a remedy for thousands of such situations.
You may rely absolutely on anything they say about themselves.
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Very truly yours,
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William D. Silkworth, M.D.
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The physician who, at our request, gave us this letter, has been kind enough to enlarge upon his views in another statement which follows. In this statement he confirms what we who have suffered alcoholic torture must believe-that the body of the alcoholic is quite as abnormal as his mind. It did not satisfy us to be told that we could not control our drinking just because we were maladjusted to life, that we were in full flight from reality, or were outright mental defectives. These things were true to some extent, in fact, to a considerable extent with some of us. But we are sure that our bodies were sickened as well. In our belief, any picture of the alcoholic which leaves out this physical factor is incomplete.
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The doctor’s theory that we have an allergy to alcohol interests us. As laymen, our opinion as to its soundness may, of course, mean little. But as ex-problem drinkers, we can say that his explanation makes good sense. It explains many things for which we cannot otherwise account.
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Though we work out our solutions on the spiritual as well as an altruistic plane, we favor hospitalization for the alcoholic who is very jittery or befogged. More often than not, it is imperative that a man’s brain be cleared before he is approached, as he has then a better chance of understanding and accepting what we have to offer.
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The doctor writes:
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The subject presented in this book seems to me to be of paramount importance to those afflicted with alcoholic addiction.
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I say this after many years’ experience as Medical Director of one of the oldest hospitals in the country treating alcoholic and drug addiction.
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There was, therefore, a sense of real satisfaction when I was asked to contribute a few words on a subject which is covered in such masterly detail in these pages.
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We doctors have realized for a long time that some form of moral psychology was of urgent importance to alcoholics, but its application presented difficulties beyond our conception. What with our ultra-modern standards, our scientific approach to everything, we are perhaps not well equipped to apply the powers of good that lie outside our synthetic knowledge.
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Many years ago one of the leading contributors to this book came under our care in this hospital and while here he acquired some ideas which he put into practical application at once.
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Later, he requested the privilege of being allowed to tell his story to other patients here and with some misgiving, we consented. The cases we have followed through have been most interesting: in fact, many of them are amazing. The unselfishness of these men as we have come to know them, the entire absence of profit motive, and their community spirit, is indeed inspiring to one who has labored long and wearily in this alcoholic field. They believe in themselves, and still more in the Power which pulls chronic alcoholics back from the gates of death.
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Of course an alcoholic ought to be freed from his physical craving for liquor, and this often requires a definite hospital procedure, before psychological measures can be of maximum benefit.
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We believe, and so suggested a few years ago, that the action of alcohol on these chronic alcoholics is a manifestation of an allergy; that the phenomenon of craving is limited to this class and never occurs in the average temperate drinker. These allergic types can never safely use alcohol in any form at all; and once having formed the habit and found they cannot break it, once having lost their self-confidence, their reliance upon things human, their problems pile up on them and become astonishingly difficult to solve.
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Frothy emotional appeal seldom suffices. The message which can interest and hold these alcoholic people must have depth and weight. In nearly all cases, their ideals must be grounded in a power greater than themselves, if they are to re-create their lives.
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If any feel that as psychiatrists directing a hospital for alcoholics we appear somewhat sentimental, let them stand with us a while on the firing line, see the tragedies, the despairing wives, the little children; let the solving of these problems become a part of their daily work, and even of their sleeping moments, and the most cynical will not wonder that we have accepted and encouraged this movement. We feel, after many years if experience, that we have found nothing which has contributed more to the rehabilitation of these men than the altruistic movement now growing up among them.
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Men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol. The sensation is so elusive that, while they admit it is injurious, they cannot after a time differentiate the true from the false. To them, their alcoholic life seems the only normal one. They are restless, irritable and discontented, unless they can again experience the sense of ease and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drinks-drinks which they see others taking with impunity. After they have succumbed to the desire again, as so many do, and the phenomenon of craving develops, they pass through the well-known stages of a spree, emerging remorseful, with a firm resolution not to drink again. This is repeated over and over, and unless this person can experience an entire psychic change there is very little hope of his recovery.
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On the other hand-and strange as this may seem to those who do not understand-once a psychic change has occurred, the very same person who seemed doomed, who had so many problems he despaired of ever solving them, suddenly finds himself easily able to control his desire for alcohol, the only effort necessary being that required to follow a few simple rules.
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Men have cried out to me in sincere and despairing appeal: “Doctor, I cannot go on like this! I have everything to live for! I must stop, but I cannot! You must help me!”
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Faced with this problem, if a doctor is honest with himself, he must sometimes feel his own inadequacy. Although he gives all that is in him, it often is not enough. One feels that something more than human power is needed to produce the essential psychic change.
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Though the aggregate of recoveries resulting from psychiatric effort is considerable, we physicians must admit we have made little impression upon the problem as a whole. Many types do not respond to the ordinary psychological approach.
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I do not hold with those who believe that alcoholism is entirely a problem of mental control. I have had many men who had, for example, worked a period of months on some problem or business deal which was to be settled on a certain date, favorably to them. They took a drink a day or so prior to the date, and then the phenomenon of craving at once became paramount to all other interests so that the important appointment was not met. These men were not drinking to escape; they were drinking to overcome a craving beyond their mental control.
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There are many situations which arise out of the phenomenon of craving which cause men to make the supreme sacrifice rather then continue to fight.
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The classification of alcoholics seems most difficult, and in much detail is outside the scope of this book. There are, of course, the psychopaths who are emotionally unstable. We are all familiar with this type. They are always “going on the wagon for keeps.” They are over-remorseful and make many resolutions, but never a decision.
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There is the type of man who is unwilling to admit that he cannot take a drink. He plans various ways of drinking. He changes his brand or his environment. There is the type who always believes that after being entirely free from alcohol for a period of time he can take a drink without danger. There is the manic-depressive type, who is, perhaps, the least understood by his friends, and about whom a whole chapter could be written.
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Then there are types entirely normal in every respect except in the effect alcohol has upon them. They are often able, intelligent, friendly people.
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All these, and many others, have one symptom in common: they cannot start drinking without developing the phenomenon of craving. This phenomenon, as we have suggested, may be the manifestation of an allergy which differentiates these people, and sets them apart as a distinct entity. It has never been, by any treatment with which we are familiar, permanently eradicated. The only relief we have to suggest is entire abstinence.
This immediately precipitates us into a seething caldron of debate. Much has been written pro and con, but among physicians, the general opinion seems to be that most chronic alcoholics are doomed.
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What is the solution? Perhaps I can best answer this by relating one of my experiences.
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About one year prior to this experience a man was brought in to be treated for chronic alcoholism. He had but partially recovered from a gastric hemorrhage and seemed to a case of pathological mental deterioration. He has lost everything worthwhile in life and was only living, one might say, to drink. He frankly admitted and believed that for him there was no hope. Following the elimination of alcohol, there was found to be no permanent brain injury. He accepted the plan outlined in this book. One year later he called to see me, and I experienced a very strange sensation. I knew the man by name, and partly recognized his features, but there all resemblance ended. From a trembling, despairing, nervous wreck, had emerged a man brimming over with self-reliance and contentment. I talked with him for some time, but was not able to bring myself to feel that I had known him before. To me he was a stranger, and so he left me. A long time has passed with no return to alcohol.
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When I need a mental uplift, I often think of another case brought in by a physician prominent in New York. The patient had made his own diagnosis and deciding his situation hopeless, had hidden in a deserted barn determined to die. He was rescued by a searching party, and, in desperate condition, brought to me. Following his physical rehabilitation, he had a talk with me in which he frankly stated he thought the treatment a waste of effort, unless I could assure him, which no one ever had, that in the future he would have the “will power” to resist the impulse to drink.
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His alcoholic problem was so complex and his depression so great, that we felt his only hope would be through what we then called “moral psychology”, and we doubted if even that would have any effect.
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However, he did become “sold” on the ideas contained in this book. He has not had a drink for a great many years. I see him now and then and he is as fine a specimen of manhood as one could wish to meet.
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I earnestly advise every alcoholic to read this book through, and though perhaps he came to scoff, he may remain to pray.
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William D. Silkworth, M.D.
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http://www.aa.org/pages/en_US/alcoholics-anonymous

Consistent with what Elaine Krewer pointed out, my AA sponsor and his sponsor, my priest confessor, had once threatened to send me here – http://www.sa.org/ – if I didn’t start straightening up and flying right. My psychotherapist of course agreed with them. And indeed I would highly recommend such a program for today’s serial fornicators and adulterers.
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That all said, I have attended Narcotics Anonymous (NA) Meetings and have a heavily marked up NA book in my home library. My experience is that it isn’t as strong as a program as AA, but the program works only if you work it – that epistle of St James.
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Overeaters Anonymous is also a great program to which my AA sponsor and my priest confessor did succeed in sending me. Early in sobriety (some 30 years ago) I ballooned from 160 lbs to 240 lbs, and my priest confessor, when he learned of what my AA sponsor was planning in sending me to OA, pointed out that gluttony was as much a sin as perpetual drunkeness. I can say that that program worked wonders with stubborn, prideful me, and I highly recommend it for all overeaters as well as anorexics (which is so much the opposite of overeating that it’s the same – too little space here to explain).
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The bottom line in all this is something Bill Wilson wrote: the bottle is only a symptom of our disease.
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You see, it isn’t the food or the sex or the drink or the drugs which kill. It’s pride. The issue is NOT the alcohol in alcoholism but the ISM (I, Self and Me) in alcoholism, and that’s the same whether one’s poison is overeating, fornicating, or using heroin. It is what St Paul said – the wages of sin are death. That’s why I have always thought that what St Paul wrote in the 2nd half of Romans chapter 7 is so applicable to the alcoholic, addict, serial fornicator, overeater, gambler, etc.
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One last note: I never got bitten by the gambling bug. I got bitten by almost all the rest (never met a drug that I did not like), but not that one. I guess God protects us from what we demonstrably cannot handle.

Amici,
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Today (May 16th, 2016) is my 30th year without a drink or a drug, thanks to Alcoholics Anonymous. My last intoxicant was May 16th, 1986 just before I walked into the Conifer Park rehab in upstate NY. I was a confirmed drunken dope-head sex-fiend, and now I am just an alcoholic drug addict sober one day at a time. If God can get me sober and keep me that way in spite of all my failings to the contrary, then He can do that for anybody. And for me, He used not just one thing but three things: AA, the Catholic Church and psychotherapy. I guess it just goes to show that God is a Trinity.

Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus.

Fantastic!
A new creation indeed.
Every step of the way to this monumental anniversary was taken with God’s help.
You are a blessed individual. A good man.
A narrow pathfinder.
Congratulations.

Thank you, Elaine, Philip and Donald.
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To Alejandro,
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AA perhaps needs no defense. It has demonstrably helped million acheive and maintain sobriety from the death spiral of alcoholism. The devil cannot get anyone sober. The devil is all about getting people drunk whether on booze, drugs, sex, gambling, overeating, or just plain old pride and ego (just look at America today and everywhere you can see the drunkeness of self-will run riot). Sobriety is the opposite of what the devil wants because once a person is sober, then the grace of God can start to work, and that’s all that AA can do and claims to do: help the suffering alcoholic. You see, AA isn’t a way into heaven, but it surely opened the gates of hell to let me out. And in AA I found the Church. Indeed, if I had never become alcoholic, hitting a bottom from which I could not lift myself, then likely I would never have found the Church. I had to be beaten senseless by my own prideful will before I would kneel. And interestingly, many people with long term sobriety – not all – do end up with a strong Christian faith. True, many are Protestants (some people can come only so far), yet many are Catholic as well, among whom are not a few priests. Indeed, my first priest confessor was an AA member. Outside the rooms of AA he was Father Jack (and I imagine there are many Father Jacks), the priest to whom I went for confession and from whom I received the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus at Mass. Inside the rooms he would always say, “Hi, my name is Jack and I am an alcoholic.” Alcohol addiction is that great leveler of pride, that great enforcer of humility. And the devil hates humility.

Alejandro: I am a Catholic but if I have a broken leg, I’ll take it to a doctor not a priest.