FOREWORD TO SECOND EDITION - Alcoholics …

1 FOREWORD TO SECOND EDITIONF igures given in this FOREWORD describe theFellowship as it was in original FOREWORD to this book waswritten in 1939, a wholesale miracle has takenplace. Our earliest printing voiced the hope thatevery alcoholic who journeys will find the Fellowshipof Alcoholics Anonymous at his destination. Already, continues the early text twos and threes and fives ofus have sprung up in other communities. Sixteen years have elapsed between our first printingof this book and the presentation in 1955of our secondedition. In that brief space, Alcoholics Anonymoushas mushroomed into nearly 6,000groups whose mem -bership is far above 150,000recovered are to be found in each of the United Statesand all of the provinces of Canada.

2 Has flourish -ing communities in the British Isles, the Scandinaviancountries, South Africa, South America, Mexico,Alaska, Australia and Hawaii. All told, promising beginnings have been made in some 50foreign coun-tries and U. S. possessions. Some are just now takingshape in Asia. Many of our friends encourage us by saying that this is but a beginning, only the augury ofa much larger future spark that was to flare into the first groupwas struck at Akron, Ohio, in June 1935, during a talkbetween a New York stockbroker and an Akron physician. Six months earlier, the broker had been relieved of his drink obsession by a sudden 11/20/13 3:43 PM Page xv experience, following a meeting with an alcoholicfriend who had been in contact with the OxfordGroups of that day.

3 He had also been greatly helpedby the late Dr. William D. Silkworth, a New York specialist in alcoholism who is now accounted no lessthan a medical saint by members, and whosestory of the early days of our Society appears in thenext pages. From this doctor, the broker had learnedthe grave nature of alcoholism. Though he could notaccept all the tenets of the Oxford Groups, he was convinced of the need for moral inventory, confessionof personality defects, restitution to those harmed,helpfulness to others, and the necessity of belief in anddependence upon to his journey to Akron, the broker had workedhard with many Alcoholics on the theory that only an alcoholic could help an alcoholic, but he had suc -ceeded only in keeping sober himself.

4 The broker hadgone to Akron on a business venture which had collapsed, leaving him greatly in fear that he mightstart drinking again. He suddenly realized that inorder to save himself he must carry his message to another alcoholic. That alcoholic turned out to bethe Akron physician had repeatedly tried spiritual meansto resolve his alcoholic dilemma but had failed. Butwhen the broker gave him Dr. Silkworth s descriptionof alcoholism and its hopelessness, the physician beganto pursue the spiritual remedy for his malady with awillingness he had never before been able to sobered, never to drink again up to the moment ofhis death in 1950.

5 This seemed to prove that one alcoholic could affect another as no nonalcoholicxviFOREWORD TO SECOND 11/20/13 3:43 PM Page xvicould. It also indicated that strenuous work, one alcoholic with another, was vital to permanent re the two men set to work almost franticallyupon Alcoholics arriving in the ward of the Akron CityHospital. Their very first case, a desperate one, recov-ered immediately and became number three. Henever had another drink. This work at Akron contin -ued through the summer of 1935. There were manyfailures, but there was an occasional heartening suc-cess.

6 When the broker returned to New York in the fallof 1935, the first group had actually been formed,though no one realized it at the SECOND small group promptly took shape at NewYork, to be followed in 1937with the start of a third atCleveland. Besides these, there were scattered al -coholics who had picked up the basic ideas in Akron orNew York who were trying to form groups in othercities. By late 1937, the number of members havingsubstantial sobriety time behind them was sufficient toconvince the membership that a new light had en -tered the dark world of the was now time, the struggling groups thought, toplace their message and unique experience before theworld.

7 This determination bore fruit in the spring of1939by the publication of this volume. The member-ship had then reached about 100men and women. Thefledgling society, which had been nameless, now beganto be called Alcoholics Anonymous, from the title of itsown book. The flying-blind period ended and en-tered a new phase of its pioneering the appearance of the new book a great dealbegan to happen. Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick, theFOREWORD TO SECOND 11/20/13 3:43 PM Page xviinoted clergyman, reviewed it with approval. In thefall of 1939 Fulton Oursler, then editor of Liberty,printed a piece in his magazine, called Alcoholics andGod.

8 This brought a rush of 800frantic inquiriesinto the little New York office which meanwhile hadbeen established. Each inquiry was painstakingly answered; pamphlets and books were sent out. Busi -nessmen, traveling out of existing groups, were referred to these prospective newcomers. New groupsstarted up and it was found, to the astonishment ofeveryone, that s message could be transmitted inthe mail as well as by word of mouth. By the end of1939it was estimated that 800alcoholics were ontheir way to the spring of 1940, John D. Rockefeller, Jr.

9 Gavea dinner for many of his friends to which he members to tell their stories. News of this got onthe world wires; inquiries poured in again and manypeople went to the bookstores to get the book Alco -holics Anonymous. By March 1941the membershiphad shot up to 2,000. Then Jack Alexander wrote a feature article in the Saturday Evening Postandplaced such a compelling picture of before thegeneral public that Alcoholics in need of help really deluged us. By the close of 1941, numbered 8,000members. The mushrooming process was in full had become a national Society then entered a fearsome and excitingadolescent period.

10 The test that it faced was this:Could these large numbers of erstwhile erratic alco-holics successfully meet and work together? Wouldthere be quarrels over membership, leadership, andmoney? Would there be strivings for power andxviiiFOREWORD TO SECOND 11/20/13 3:43 PM Page xviii prestige? Would there be schisms which would apart? Soon was beset by these very prob-lems on every side and in every group. But out of thisfrightening and at first disrupting experience the con-viction grew that s had to hang together or die separately. We had to unify our Fellowship or passoff the we discovered the principles by which the indi-vidual alcoholic could live, so we had to evolve prin -ciples by which the groups and as a wholecould survive and function effectively.