52. Holiday Season is a high risk time for alcoholics; AA history inspires

By Tom O'Connell

The Holidays are a very high risk time for alcoholics who are drinking, for those who are committed to sobriety, and for the friends and loved ones of all concerned. It is a time when alcohol is used heavily as a social lubricant and, unfortunately for many, personal disaster often follows consumption.

Alcoholic disaster was being experienced during the Holiday Season of 1934 by a  New York stock market wizard named Bill Wilson. He was sinking into alcoholic despair when a former drinking buddy showed up and told him about his own spiritual awakening.

That visit would soon have an impact on Wilson. But let's have a little background information first. In the early 1930s, a drunk named Rowland H. was in a desperate state, so as a "last resort" he went to Switzerland for treatment by the renowned psychologist Carl Jung. For a while he remained sober, but then he relapsed. Once more he returned to Dr. Jung, but this time Jung told him that he considered his case hopeless...unless he experienced a spiritual or religious conversion.

Jung suggested that he place himself in a religious atmosphere and hope for the best. So Rowland joined an evangelical Christian movement called the Oxford Groups, which was popular in Europe. The emphasis was on self-survey, confession, restitution, and giving oneself in service to others. Also, they strongly stressed meditation and prayer. The effect on Rowland was positive, since he was released from his compulsion to drink.

Back in New York, Rowland became active with the local Oxford Group led by an Episcopal clergyman, Dr. Sam Shoemaker. Soon Rowland helped a man named "Ebby" to achieve sobriety through the same spiritual means. And Ebby happened to be an old schoolmate of Bill Wilson, who was in a life-or-death struggle with his own alcoholism.

Here is what Wilson wrote about November '34: "I had long marked my friend as a hopeless case....Because he was a kindred sufferer, he could unquestionably communicate with me at great depth. I knew at once I must find an experience like his, or die." 

During that December, in Towns Hospital, Wilson found his spiritual enlightenment when he was at the depths of despair. "There immediately came to me an illumination of enormous impact and dimension, something which I have since tried to describe in the the book Alcoholics Anonymous and also in AA Comes of Age...My release from the alcohol obsession was immediate. At once I knew I was a free man."

A few months later he met Dr. Bob Smith in Akron, Ohio, and Dr. Bob had his last drink on June 10, 1935. That date marked the beginning of the doctor's sobriety and the birth of AA. Then the two of them began their quest for drunks to help. And soon there were groups of alcoholics meeting to support each other's sobriety.

The fellowship grew, and after a while they produced a book they were going to call "The Way Out," but they changed their minds and called it "Alcoholics Anonymous," which also became the name of their recovery movement.

In the early years there were six suggested spiritual steps toward healthy sobriety:

1) We admitted that we were licked, that we were powerless over alcohol.

2) We made a moral inventory of our defects or sins.

3) We confessed or shared our shortcomings with another person in confidence.

4) We made restitution to all those we had harmed by our drinking.

5) We tried  to help other alcoholics, with no thought of reward in money of prestige.

6) We prayed to whatever God we thought there was for power to practice these precepts.

Later the steps were refined and expanded to twelve. Meanwhile, the groups broke away from the Oxford movement. Wilson, in a 1940 letter, described why AA had pulled away: "excessive evangelization, the need to avoid personal publicity or prominence, a problem with the word 'absolute,' elimination of all forms of coercion, the need for more spiritual preparation, more emphasis on the principles of tolerance and love, and the importance of making 'no religious requirement' of anyone."

AA is a deeply spiritual program, but it is inclusive instead of exclusive. It is not a cult or a religion, and has no rigid creed. It is based on "suggestions." And it works. When asked, "How does it work?" a wise AA member once replied, "Just fine, thank you."

If you would like to know more about AA and its 12 steps I encourage you to browse through your local bookseller's recovery literature (or the Internet). Review the steps there, and the literature. AA has helped millions to achieve sobriety, and the process continues very much as it was developed in the 1930s and '40s, with one drunk helping another, practicing spiritual principles, turning to a Higher Power for help, attending meetings, and learning to live life on life's terms...instead of escaping into a bottle.

- Back -