Alcholics Anonymous - The Story

Alcoholics Anonymous is a voluntary organization that was conceived back in 1935 to help practicing alcoholics to find sobriety. It was the brainchild of Mr. Bill Wilson, a onetime financier who’s career in Finance was shattered by alcoholism.

While other patients who suffer from acute alcohol poisoning effects attend a hospital, Bill Wilson experienced what he called a spiritual experience and he could heal himself in his new receipt and belief in God.

After leaving hospital he teamed up with Doctor Bob Smith and together they went about their joint vocation of helping and curing alcoholics. The venture was hugely successful and in 1939 Bill Wilson wrote a book entitled Alcoholics Anonymous that started the organization we know today.

At the moment there are more than 106,000 Alcoholics Anonymous meeting groups and the organization has spread around the world. The requirements for joining Alcoholics Anonymous are that only have to be an alcoholic who wants to stop. There is no payment or fee thus the foundation receives its funding from private donations.

The alcoholism treatment concept as a disease was the result of Dr. William Silkworth’s idea, the doctor who has treated Bob Wilson in New York hospital, where here his spiritual experience that put him on the way of creation of Alcoholics Anonymous.

As alcoholic anonymous grew during the late 1930s and early 1940s, it became more structured and the 12 basic principles were developed that are still the backbone of the organization today. The original 12 principles were:

• Admitting their lives have been ruled by alcoholism
• Believing God could cure alcoholism
• Putting themselves in hands of God
• Honest self evaluation
• Self confession of wrongs enacted
• Preparedness for God to get rid of the bad characteristics
• Requesting that God remove these bad characteristics
• Making list people they had harmed as well as committing to restore wrongs done
• Actually making any amends possible
• Continuous self-evaluation and admittance of any ongoing imperfections
• Vowing to try to understand God and his plans for recovering alcoholics
• Committing to assist other practicing alcoholics

Alcoholics Anonymous had a basic foundation in the belief of God, it appears from the original mission statements or principles, but the companionship has increased over the passage of several years, the principles have to be more and more general so as not to estrange or make themselves indefensible to alcoholics that badly need and want assistance, but saw religion as an obstacle to obtaining the assistance.