On this day in 1935, Bill Wilson, a member of The Oxford Group, a non-denominational movement that focused heavily on religion, specifically Christianity, as a way through which to remain sober, and Dr. Robert Smith, a surgeon and member of The OG who could not stop drinking or remain sober, sat down together in Akron, Ohio for Dr. Bob's last drink.
It is this day which is marked as the start of Alcoholics Anonymous, an international mutual aid movement.
What differed between The OG and AA was that whilst the former focused on remaining sober by believing in God and religion, the latter determined that members could get sober by believing in each other and in the strength of the group.
AA's primary purpose is for the individual to remain sober and at the same time help others to achieve sobriety, which is achievable through the groups Twelve Step program and understanding the group's Twelve Traditions (which include recommendations that members and groups remain anonymous in public media and that group members stay away from dogma, governing hierarchies and involvement in public issues)
Other groups, such as Narcotics Anonymous, have adopted and adapted the Twelve Steps and Traditions to their respective primary purposes.
Whilst in 2006 AA claimed to have over 1.8 million members and over 100 000 groups worldwide, more recent data shows that AA now has more than 2 million members.
Yet, is this necessarily a good thing?
I mean, sure it's great that people around the world recognise that they have a place they can go, people they can talk to if they do get to that stage of excessive and continual drinking. But what I want to know is how more than 2 million people let themselves get to that stage? How does it end up like this? More to the point, how do they let themselves get to that point?
I've never known anyone to be a member of AA. Although, I think that's not necessarily a bad thing, considering the group is called Alcoholics Anonymous not Alcoholics Let's-Tell-Everyone. So maybe my inability to quite comprehend what is going on with this group and these alcoholics stems in some ways from that.
I wanted to find out a bit more about AA. I googled it, visited the AA website which was interesting and there were a couple of videos on there about people who had joined AA and were now changed for the better. But I though that this was a little bit biased, so my next step was to go to YouTube and search for "alcoholics anonymous funny" because if you ever want to know somebody or something's flaws, look to comedians. These people intentionally pick out what is bad and use that to their advantage.
And in this quest of mine, I found this:
Not sure if it's funny. I actually think it's kind of crude and maybe goes a little bit too far. See, it's hard with groups like AA, to know where the boundaries are.
So, I leave it up to you. It's your decision.
Which is really actually quite a good motto in itself I think:
It's your decision.
Image available: http://www.brooklynintergroup.org/
Video available: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n86JKqA8o4w
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