Alcoholics Anonymous Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
Alcoholics Anonymous (known commonly as "A.A.") is a 12-step program designed to support alcoholics in their struggle to control their addiction to alcohol. It is the original model for all subsequent and separate 12-step programs such as Gamblers Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous and Al-Anon.The primary purpose of Alcoholics Anonymous is "to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety." An earlier group, the Washingtonians, fell apart when it tried to branch out to different goals, which A.A. has tried to avoid. (See A.A.'s Twelve Traditions as detailed in the A.A. "Big Book" .)
There is some controversy over the A.A. approach of abstinence as a goal as opposed to other programs which aim for moderation. [1]
Although phrases and ideas drawn from Protestant Christianity are used in A.A. literature and at A.A. meetings, the organization doesn't promote any particular religion, and it has worked for adherents of many faiths, including Buddhists, Jews and Muslims. Nevertheless, since it suggests that the recovering alcoholic should ask for help from a "Higher Power," some atheists find themselves unable to accept the Twelve Steps and instead seek out secular alternatives. A.A. has been deemed a religious organization by a United States federal court. (see "A.A., Religion and the Law" below.)
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2 Beliefs About Alcoholism 3 A.A. Structure 4 A.A., Religion and the Law 5 External links |
A.A. was started by two alcoholics who first met on May 12, 1935. One was Bill Wilson (William Griffith Wilson), a New York stockbroker; the other was fellow Oxford Group (later, Moral Rearmament) member Dr. Bob Smith (Robert Holbrook Smith), a medical doctor and surgeon from Akron, Ohio.
Wilson had been sober for some months when he met Smith, although he had struggled with sobriety for years. In that time he had made several important discoveries about his own alcoholism.
Firstly he had learned from a New York alcoholism specialist, Dr. William Duncan Silkworth, that alcoholism was not simply a moral weakness. Silkworth told Wilson, during one of Wilson's admissions to his drying-out clinic, that alcoholism had a pathological disease-like character. He told Wilson that, in his view, alcoholism was akin to an allergy, in the sense that it produced abnormal reactions to alcohol that were not observed in non-alcoholic drinkers; he called these reactions a "phenomenon of craving" -- once started drinking, the alcoholic finds it very difficult to stop. In addition, Dr. Silkworth told Wilson that alcoholics had a mental obsession that gave them reasons to return to alcohol after periods of sobriety, even knowing that they would then develop overwhelming cravings. This "double whammy" (as he called it) meant that the alcoholic could not stop once started, and could not stop from starting again. This explained the enormous recidivism rate of alcoholics.
Wilson also discovered that some alcoholics were able to recover on a spiritual basis. This approach had been used by one of Wilson's old drinking buddies, Ebby Thatcher, to get sober. Thatcher in turn had learned about the spiritual approach from Roland H., an American alcoholic who had undergone treatment with the famous Swiss psychoanalyst Dr. Carl Jung. After a prolonged and unsuccessful period of therapy, Jung told Roland that his case, like that of most alcoholics, was nigh on hopeless. Roland H. was horrified and begged Jung to tell him anything at all that might help. Jung replied there was only one hope for alcoholics: a dramatic and profound spiritual conversion. He said that history had recorded isolated examples of recovery that were due solely to the spiritual conversion of the alcoholic. His final advice to Roland H. was to seek out a conversion experience.
Roland H. returned to America and found a means to a spiritual awakening through the Oxford Group, a self-styled first-Century Christian movement that advocated finding God through moral inventory, confession of defects, restitution, reliance upon their God, and helping others. It appeared that a spiritual awakening would relieve alcoholics of the mental obsession that kept sending them back to alcoholism after periods of sobriety.
Finally, Wilson found that by sharing his personal alcoholic experience with other alcoholics, his own sobriety seemed to grow stronger and it helped the other person as well.
These were the ideas that he presented to Smith, who had been struggling with his own chronic drinking addiction. (Smith's last drink is said to have been June 10, 1935, and that is considered within A.A. to be the date of the founding of A.A.) The two struck up a solid friendship and together they put Wilson's discoveries into practice. Their first publication in 1939, Alcoholics Anonymous, the first 164 pages of which have remained virtually unchanged since then, has been a perennial best-seller.
Although some members of Alcoholics Anonymous might believe that its success lies in the sense of support and community its members gain from attending regular meetings, the vast majority of members, and the literature, hold that the essence of Alcoholics Anonymous is the Twelve Steps, which incorporate Dr. Silkworth's description of the two-fold problem of physical allergy and mental obsession in Step One, Dr. Jung's description of the spiritual solution in Step Two, the Oxford Groups' method of reaching a spiritual awakening in Steps Three through Eleven, and Wilson's experience in helping others in Step Twelve.
It is sometimes suggested that those in early sobriety attend ninety meetings in ninety days. There is no minimum number or frequency of meetings, however, that members are required to attend. Some may go to one meeting a week or less. No membership records or meeting attendence records are kept at any level in A.A.
A.A. does not charge membership dues to attend meetings, but instead relies on whatever donations members choose to freely give to cover minimal running costs like rent, coffee, etc. Contributions from A.A. members are limited to a maximum annual amount. A.A. is self-supporting and is not a charity. It accepts no subsidies from any non-A.A. source and donations of money or other items of value from non-AA sources are always refused.
The AA Grapevine is the international journal of Alcoholics Anonymous. It is written, edited, illustrated, and read by A.A. members and others interested in the A.A. program of recovery from the disease of alcoholism.
The growth of A.A., especially in its early decades, was striking. In 2002, the General Service Office of Alcoholics Anonymous reported that there were more than 100,000 A.A. groups in 150 countries, with a combined total membership of approximately two million alcoholics.
History and Development of A.A.
AA receives proceeds from sale of its book Alcoholics Anonymous along with other A.A.-approved books and literature, which are periodically reviewed from a cost standpoint so that printed materials can be priced to be self-sustaining while not actually being a source of profit for the organization.
A.A. uses the famous Serenity Prayer.
There is no central doctrine or creed of A.A. belief about alcoholism, since A.A's individual members are free to believe what they wish, based on their own experience. Even the A.A. 12-step program is presented to members as suggested rather than mandatory. However, many A.A. members share common views on alcoholism and most would agree with the following statements:
a. Alcoholism has no cure. Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic. There is no way to make a "normal" drinker out of an alcoholic. Alcoholics who do not drink can recover and function in normal society, but should they drink again, their active alcoholism will re-emerge immediately and be as debilitating as before. This is true even in cases where alcoholics have remained sober for many years before relapsing.
b. Alcoholism is a progressive illness. Over time, alcoholics who continue to drink will get worse. Those who keep drinking will often die or be institutionalized (prison, hospital or aslyum).
c. The first drink does the damage. Once an alcoholic takes a drink, a powerful compulsion to keep drinking sets in. This makes moderation or controlled drinking extremely difficult, and in most cases impossible for the alcoholic. Thus the A.A. approach of abstinence. Without the first drink, the compulsion to drink is greatly reduced and recovery becomes possible. Much of the A.A. program is intended to help the alcoholic stay stopped, thereby preventing the compulsive drinking cycle from starting.
d. The desire to stop drinking needs to come from the alcoholic. This often happens as a result of the alcoholic realizing that his or her life has become unmanageable and that excessive drinking is the cause. A.A. members call this "hitting rockbottom" - a potentially life-changing moment when the alcoholic perceives an urgent need for major personal change.
United States judges continue to offer defendants the choice of attending A.A. or going to prison. A federal appeals court ruled in 1999 that doing so compromises Americans' constitutional right not to have religion dictated to them by government--because A.A. suggests that a belief in a higher power is necessary to achieve recovery. This case did not create a precedent and the Supreme Court has not ruled on the matter.
A.A. itself is not in favor of any person being coerced to attend its meetings. The experience of A.A. has long suggested that the program works best for people who attend of their own free will. The Third Tradition of A.A. says "The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking." Those who are forced to attend may not have any desire to stop drinking. Nevertheless, it is true that some members owe their recovery to the fact they were ordered to go to A.A. by a judge or doctor. A.A. does not stop any person from attending its meetings, even if some are there only because a court or other authority compelled them.
This is an Article on Alcoholics Anonymous. Page Contains Information, Facts Details or Explanation Guide About Alcoholics Anonymous Beliefs About Alcoholism
A.A. Structure
The affairs of A.A. are governed broadly by A.A.'s Twelve Traditions and the Twelve Concepts. A.A. has a minimal amount of organized structure. There is no hierarchy of leaders and no formal central authority. Individual A.A. members and individual groups cannot be compelled to do anything by a "higher" A.A. authority. Each A.A. group, small or large, is considered a self-supporting and self-governing entity. A.A. does maintain offices and service centres which have the task of co-ordinating activities like printing literature, responding to public enquiries and organizing state or national conferences. These offices are funded by the A.A. membership and are directly responsible to the A.A. groups they represent.A.A., Religion and the Law
External links