Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is based on the simple premise that to stay sober, alcoholics must help other alcoholics. Alcoholics Anonymous was founded in 1935 by two alcoholics who had struggled with their drinking for decades: Bill Wilson, a failed New York businessman, and Robert Smith, an Akron, Ohio, doctor. Wilson, who had been confined to mental institutions and hospitals several times because of his drinking, created AA’s twelve steps, which form the basis of the Alcoholics Anonymous recovery program. The twelve steps outline the actions people need to take to quit drinking and learn to live a sober lifestyle.

The first and most important step is for people to admit they are powerless over alcohol and that drinking has created so many severe problems in their lives that they must quit. The other steps include a personal inventory of how they harmed themselves and other people, with an emphasis on how anger, fear, resentment, and selfishness influenced their actions. The alcoholics also list everyone hurt by their drinking and try to make amends. The alcoholic must also work to conquer characteristics that contribute to his or her drinking. The steps are done progressively, but a member of Alcoholics Anonymous is never completely done with any of them. Recovering alcoholics continue trying to understand the steps more deeply and working them more perfectly for the rest of their lives so they can remain sober.

The heart of the Alcoholics Anonymous program is a belief that alcoholics need the help of a “higher power” to quit drinking and transform their lives for the better in many other ways. Alcoholics Anonymous, however, is not a religious program. It is not allied with any specific religious group, and its members include Catholics, Protestants, Jews, and members of other major religions. The pamphlet Forty-four Questions explains that Alcoholics Anonymous only asks that its members believe in a higher power as they understand it:

Most members, before turning to A.A., had already admitted that they could not control their drinking. Alcohol had become a power greater than themselves, and it had been accepted on those terms. Alcoholics Anonymous suggests that to achieve and maintain sobriety, alcoholics need to accept and depend upon another Power recognized as greater than themselves.

AA members are urged to develop a one-on-one dialogue with the higher power of their choosing. To make themselves strong enough to stay sober and lead better lives, Alcoholics Anonymous members maintain this vital link to their higher power by daily prayer, inspirational readings, and meditation.

Bill W. and Dr. Bob

The cover of the June 14, 1999, issue of Time is a collage of famous people the magazine considers “Heroes and Icons,” including boxer Muhammad Ali, slain President John F. Kennedy, and Mother Teresa. One space, however, was left blank in honor of Bill Wilson, the cofounder of Alcoholics Anonymous. Although famed philosopher Aldous Huxley once called Wilson “the greatest social architect of [the twentieth] century,” Wilson always shunned personal publicity out of a fear that it might endanger the organization he helped create. Wilson asked the media to refer to him as “Bill W,” and Robert Smith became “Dr. Bob.” A story in the magazine by novelist Susan Cheever, herself a recovering alcoholic, explains how Alcoholics Anonymous got its start after the two men met.

Five months [after quitting drinking], Wilson went to Akron, Ohio, on business. The deal fell through, and he wanted a drink. He stood in the lobby of the Mayflower Hotel, entranced by the sounds of the bar across the hall. Suddenly he became convinced that by helping another alcoholic, he could save himself. Through a series of desperate phone calls, he found Dr. Robert Smith, a skeptical drunk whose family persuaded him to give Wilson 15 minutes. Their meeting lasted four hours. A month later, Dr. Bob had his last drink, and that date, June 10, 1935, is the official birth date of AA., which is based on the idea that only an alcoholic can help another alcoholic. “Because of our kinship in suffering,” Bill wrote, “our channels of contact have always been charged with the language of the heart.”

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