Alcoholics Anonymous is the world's largest substance-abuse recovery program, having grown from two men meeting in one city during the Great Depression to a fellowship of more than 2 million members meeting in more than 100,000 groups around the world. The AA treatment program, outlined in the fellowship's "12 steps," has been adapted by a wide range of self-help groups.
History
Alcoholics Anonymous traces its history to 1935. Bill Wilson, a New York salesman struggling to remain sober during a business trip to Akron, Ohio, concluded that the only way he was going to keep from drinking was to help another suffering alcoholic. A local church put him in touch with just such a person, a physician named Bob Smith. "Dr. Bob" soon quit drinking, and the two men began building the fellowship that would become AA.
Goal
AA views total abstinence as the only effective treatment for alcoholism, and its treatment program is built around helping people first to quit drinking, then to stay sober by changing their thinking and their behavior. AA won't teach you how to "drink in moderation," because in the view of AA, alcoholics by definition are people who cannot drink in moderation.
Requirements
Though abstinence is the goal of AA, it's not actually a requirement. As far as AA is concerned, "a desire to stop drinking" is all you need to be a member. The fellowship is thoroughly decentralized: You don't apply for membership; rather, you just start going to meetings, and you're a member. No one takes attendance at meetings, and there are no dues of any kind, though at each meeting the hat is passed for a free-will offering.
AA is an unapologetically spiritual program, though not a religious one, and there is no requirement that you believe in God. Members are expected to develop a relationship with a "higher power," though they are free to interpret that any way they want. The steps refer to "God, as we understood him," and for many members, their higher power is indeed God. But others use the collective wisdom of the group itself, or their sponsor, or the standard AA text, "Alcoholics Anonymous," known as the "Big Book."
Description
The AA program hinges on regular attendance at meetings, where alcoholics come together to talk about their lives and their progress and to offer mutual support--what the program calls sharing "experience, strength and hope." Newcomers are encouraged to get to as many meanings as possible, with "90 meetings in 90 days" a common recommendation. Each member of AA is encouraged to work with a "sponsor," a person in the program who has been sober longer than you have and who can guide you through the 12 steps and provide advice on how to live a sober life.
Process
AA members work toward lasting recovery by following the 12 steps, which are designed to guide them to insight on the nature of their condition, and then to change their behavior and thinking. You start by acknowledging that alcoholism has made your life unmanageable, and that a higher power can help you recover. As you work through the steps, you take a "personal inventory" of your actions, admit your faults, pray for the removal of character defects, and identify and make amends to people you've harmed. In the 12th step, you work with other alcoholics to help them move toward recovery.
References
- Alcoholics Anonymous: Fact File
- Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions; AA World Services; 1952;
- The Recovery Book; Al J. Mooney, Arlene Eisenberg and Howard Eisenberg; 1992
