Leadfoot

Awuh1. You are correct. It was only during a brief time that this practice took place. Somewhere between the time the book was written in 1939 and late 1939 when the article came out in the Cleveland paper. The article that came out in the Plain Dealer article (or articles) as there may have been more than one created an influx of people coming to AA. Possibly more potential prospects than there were potential sponsors. In Cleveland only. Bill was failing in New York and Dr Bob was working out of The Bible. But doing well. The wording on page 21 suggests that the prospect was instructed on the principals. The Principles being the steps according to the 12x12. This may be where the thought came from but possibly not. I'll continue to research that.
Now. Having said that, the 1941 article in the Saturday Evening Post by Jack Alexander really got the ball rolling. More so than the Plain Dealer article(s) as The Saturday Evening Post was nationwide publication. This was early 1941. March to be exact which means it was January or February that Jack Alexander was working on the article. So we had a span of about a year in there where we really don't know what was going on. The thing that should be pointed out that the wording pertaining to the 75% success rate appears in the forward to the Second Edition which came out in 1955. We know that we weren't sponsoring people into groups after taking them through the first three steps as late as 1955. That's for sure. But. The wording is also found in the Saturday Evening Post article in 1941 just about verbatim.

From Saturday Evening Post March 1941
Somehow that made in to the forward to edition two fourteen years later. Was it fact? Was it ever fact? We know the first 100 was only about 60 people. So who knows. I do appreciate you getting me into the book doing some research. It keeps the mind in the solution and active in the program. I saw a discussion in the 12 Step Forum pertaining to asking questions regarding the Big Book. I say absolutely. In fact I encourage it.

awuh1

I got to thinking about this whole thing, you know, “what happened” as the original post put it. Then, in talking about how it used to be when AA first began it occurred to me.
There is something a bit different between then and now.

Can you imagine what it must have been like to see this fellowship of former drunks grow from tens, to hundreds, to thousands? Drunks that the medical science of the day could do little to nothing for? These guys began to see real hope and many of them were seeing it at almost the same time. AA was offering a solution that was working time and again. It was having a rate of success that was 10 or20 times more effective than what the doctors and hospitals were getting.

WOW, to have witnessed that must have been so amazing. To see hopeless drunks, by the dozens, get their lives back when only a few years prior there was next to no hope at all. I can only imagine the enthusiasm that this must have generated.

I’m currently very moved by listening to all the success stories that I hear every week in the different meetings that I attend. AA is still alive and well and I’m grateful to be a part of it.

At the same time…. can you imagine what it must have been like back then!

Gottalife

"It was having a rate of success that was 10 or20 times more effective than what the doctors and hospitals were getting."

Awuh, I wonder if you could elaborate on this a bit. From the writing of Silkworth and the story about Jung, along with other medical professionals of the era, I have always had the impression that they were indeed highly effective in their treatment of alcoholics generally. Meaning perhaps those who were able to recover on a non-spiritual basis. They talk of the likes of Bill W as a hopeless case, one they would not take if they could avoid it, is if this is a distinct class of alcoholic- the one to be avoided lol. It seems this group of hopeless types was the group they found so frustrating.

Fast forward to today and we find, even on this site, many, a majority even, recovering on a non-spiritual basis by various means other than AA.

Moreover, our local experts in the field tell us that they are just as successful with the majority as they ever were, but there still remains that small group of hopeless cases who do not respond to the medical approach. I suspect that if I were to ask one of these professionals whether AA today would be 10 or 20 times more successful with this small group, they would most likely answer in the affirmative.

So what's changed?

TrixMixer

GottaLife,
Sorry to insert myself into this post for Awuh.....but wouldn't speculation on our part? I do not think there are any definitive statistics out there to support "a" theory, right?

I think it would be very interesting to find actual stats on Alcoholism and Recovery rates by individual methods.

Threshold

I do think there are different causes for people's alcoholism, and therefor different remedies.

For some people AA is "the last house on the block". They tried everything else they'd heard of and none of it worked for them. For others AA is the first house on the block, they try it out, find it's not for them and get recovery through another means.

It sounds like in the beginning AA sought out the hopeless and it was less likely that it would be the first, second or third house on the block, it was the last house on the block for most who got involved. Those people had already tried everything else. Now many people check out AA first.

awuh1

Gottalife, I’m not sure how you reached the conclusion that medical professionals were successful in their approach to alcoholism during the era of AA’s birth (or prior). I have never seen anything that would indicate this, including the bb accounts by Silkworth and Jung.

I agree with Trixmixer. Good statistics on recovery are hard to come by. The Alexander article cited by Leadfoot put the success rate for the medical profession of that era at less than 5%. Can you imagine the outrage from the medical community, to a nationally publicized article by a prominent journalist like Jack Alexander, if he had got that wrong?

AA exploded in popularity in the early 40’s and 50’s. It went from 100 individuals in April of 1939 to many thousands of members in just a few years. This did not happen because the medical community was doing a fine job treating alcoholics. Quite the contrary.

With regard to folks recovering on a non-spiritual basis. I see this somewhat differently and along the lines of the second psychiatrist you mentioned from the big book.

Carl Jung, in his letter to Bill W, pointed to three methods for reaching the “higher understanding” necessary for success. One of these is a “truthful and honest contact with friends”. In other words, using the “the protective wall of human community”. I agree with Jung that this is a spiritual path. It’s a spiritual path whether it’s posting in SR’s secular section asking or giving help, or if it’s doing the same in an AA meeting with an atheist/agnostic who has a ‘group of drunks’ as a power greater than him or herself. I believe a spiritual path is more common than many realize.

Just my 2cents

BackToSquareOne

When you guys talk about AA and spirituality do you think that peoples concepts of spirituality are changing? I don't think people are less spiritual today, they just don't feel the need to attach themselves to one doctrine, religion, teaching or whatever you prefer to call it.


Science and technology have made great advances causing even the hard core groups to question much of what they once thought were true truths. Is it possible that people are no longer just accepting teachings without questioning them? Maybe the aspect of not believing everything someone once wrote in a book is a good thing, just a thought.

Johnston

^^^ this, assuming you include the Big Book in your list of religious/spiritual texts/doctrines/beliefs. Just because something is in print does not mean it is infallibe.

Gottalife

Awuh,
To quote Silkworth

"I personally know scores of cases who were of the type with whom other methods had failed completely"

"Though the aggregate of recoveries resulting from psychiatric effort is considerable, we physicians must admit we have made little impression on the problem as a whole. Many types do not respond to the ordinary psychiatric approach."

"general opinion seems to be that most chronic alcoholics are doomed"

To me these statements indicate that there was more than one type of alcoholic and that psychiatric methods were successful with some. While he says the psychiatric help only made a small impression on the problem as a whole, the same can be said of AA.

Jung to that certain American businessman:

" You have the mind of a chronic alcoholic. I have never seen one single case recover, where that state of mind existed to the extent that it does in you"

" With many individuals, the methods which I employed are successful, but I have never been successful with an alcoholic of your description."

Doesn't this say that he had seen many less severe cases recover through psychiatric aid?

I realise that back then they did not have the huge alcoholism treatment industry that exists today, but those working in the field did have methods that were effective with many.

I would suggest that the one reason psychiatric methods are having more success today is a matter of scale rather than any new psychiatric developments.

keithj

Mike,

I think this is exactly what Cliff B. was getting at in the article. When AA meetings start adopting (and looking like) those psychiatric, social, and group support methods that may be effective with drinkers of a certain type, the meetings lose their effectiveness and usefulness to the chronic alcoholic described in the BB.

LadyBlue0527

I think that you hit upon something.

TrixMixer

Edited for space by TrixMixer:

This line of though is very interesting. Could it also be that they have found a generic predisposition to some other form of mental deficiency that causes the alcoholic to self medicate with alcohol. Now they have anti-depressants that may be helping those that were "incurable" so to speak?

You know me and Meds--I am all for them, saved my life, so I may just be talking out of my medicated brain, LOL!

awuh1

Sorry but I don't see evidence of this in the quotes.

Note that Jungs letter to Bill refers only to spiritual solutions.

With regard to Silkworth, here is an excerpt from his an article called “The Prevention of Alcoholism Challenge to the Catholic Clergy” (written in the 40’s ?)

“the fact remains -to the best of my knowledge -that no cure has yet been discovered. Not a single one. However, the disease has been arrested in nearly 100,000 alcoholics by a group that expounds no theory except absolute abstinence -Alcoholics Anonymous."
"It is a disease so complex that, until the advent of A.A., there seemed small hope of arresting it.”


Here is a link to an article Silkworth wrote in the Journal "Medical Record" 1937 (nearly two years to the day before the bb was published). Reclamation of the Alcoholic - Silkworth, W.D., New York, N.Y.

Note that even then Silkworth is saying that a form of "Moral Psychology" is what works. This involves people who have made a decision not to drink (as distinguished from a resolution not to drink). Note also that the decision which he refers to is in the form of an inspiration!

(note also that as examples of this, #III and IV, he uses Hank P. and Bill W.)

Gottalife

Thank you Keith

That's the point I have been trying to make. There are different types of alcoholics and among them are types that can be helped through medical means, and another group, perhaps much smaller, for whom these methods will not work. Our most prominent medical man in the field told us exactly that at a public meeting on family violence just one year ago.

Gottalife

Ok Awuh, I take your point. My statement was a bit optimistic, but it still seems obvious that they both had methods that worked with some alcoholics, but no effective method for the chronic BB type alcoholic.

Your response focuses on the chronic BB type alcoholic and I absolutely agree with your conclusions in that respect. But these days I believe the definition is much wider and includes many that AA would call hard drinkers, and perhaps those self medicating for some issue other than alcoholism. The former can stop if they want and the latter will recover when their issue is resolved. These types of "alcoholics" will be well served with the medical approach.

jaynie04

AA was more fluid during Bill W's life than it has become following his death. He stayed open to possibilities throughout his life, including the use of LSD. I am curious as to thoughts about the fact that the program that grew and morphed over the years of his life and the program's founding, has it now become a doctrine that is fixed and somewhat rigid? Were there discussions early on about the fact that AA should be open to change and adaptable as societies inevitably do not remain static?

In the US our Constitution was painstakingly drafted word by word, yet amendments have been made along the way to ensure that it remains relevant and that it addresses ever changing needs of it's constituents. I don't believe that the disease of alcoholism itself has changed since the 1930's, but society has. I think the aforementioned comment about AA being the first stop rather than the last today is very central. Many are not on their knees when they enter the rooms. I spent years in the rooms in my teens accompanying my newly sober mother. I was raised on traditional purist AA. My guess would be that by opening up AA's plausibility and relevance to today's society for question it could undermine and dilute it's potential to be of help.

It's a tough one. I see, even in the most civilized and interesting discussions, where people are simply trying to get clarification about issues, the potential for AA to be dissected. I believe the cotton out of your ears and into your mouth aspect moves people who might get stuck in trying to poke holes in the program off the fence, it pushes them to work on their recovery and not waste time fault finding AA. It is still a very young program in years, but happened to be introduced as the world was beginning to shrink exponentially with the advent of the information age. Getting the word out was a very important part of young AA,members in those days were like foot soldiers. AA doesn't and won't ever exist in a vacuum. .

I don't believe I have ever heard anyone who was thrilled to go to their first AA meeting. If you don't want to be there and don't want to get sober you are certainly in a different position now to access information and build your case. I believe this feeds into the OP. People aren't necessarily on their knees, information is disseminated differently, people have heard of AA before, there is a huge industry that makes fortunes off of addiction and alcoholism, the 12 steps have been somewhat watered down by being used for any issue under the sun. Part of what works with AA is the concreteness of it's principles and traditions. In order for AA to exist until 2135 I imagine the winds of change are going to have to be acknowledged. I guess my question is how best a very valuable program can continue to maintain it's integrity while still addressing that things in the world do change....?

Gottalife

Very good points Jayne04. My experience was that I got sober and stayed sober for the first 5 years under old school AA. I spent the next 20 years participating willingly, and perhaps blindly, in "therapy AA", where we didn't bother much with the steps and thought the BB was outdated, and watched our numbers dwindle.

For the past 8 years or so I have gone some way back to the basic principles espoused in the Big Book, as have an increasing number of others and our recovery rates, unity and fellowship seem to be improving and growing again.

I suppose principles are universal, they don't date.

MattM316

I think the religious/higher power aspect of AA is what puts a lot of people off and ironically it ends up pushing people away from getting help.

I'm not having a go at religious people, each to their own, but in general I don't see how going down that path is the right thing to do if AA are determined to help everyone, regardless of their religious/spiritual beliefs.

hawkeyefan

I don't have time to read all the posts b4 I head off to work, but for me, one big problem was the lack of anominity (?). I can't exactly quote Bill W. but he basically said that the only way AA would continue and survive was this hugely basic principal..If alcoholics don't feel they can open up and it not be all over the place, they will not come..until our society thinks differently about alcoholism, that it truly is a disease, the fear of being "found out" will stop us from coming...to quote another poster here.."Ask me how I know"...

jazzfish

It seems there are four groups:
1. People who think AA is going down the tubes because it has changed too much.
2. People who think AA is going down the tubes because it doesn't change enough.
3. People who have tried AA and found success with it.
4. People who have tried AA and found it isn't for them (with and with out finding sobriety).

I think it will always be difficult to judge "success" in AA. I tried it 30 years ago and it didn't work (i.e. I didn't work the program). I had a few other friends who stayed sober for 7-10 years and then left it but stayed sober. Two left to become deeper with their spiritual programs. Two left because they felt that they weren't getting anything out of either repetition of the Big Book readings or the group discussion. One left because she decided she had been having a problem with life and not with alcohol.

Three have remained sober while the other two returned to drinking but, on the surface, are now moderate drinkers. There are, of course, some I know who have stayed with AA and are content and sober. Many others have rotated through the rooms without really trying the program and have never achieved lasting sobriety. Is this success? I think so.