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A.A. History: The "Original" A.A. Program
When was the original program developed and completed?
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Many Claims. Many Errors. One Truth

When was A.A. Founded?

You'd think by now that everyone knew. Yet I was active in A.A. and its meetings for two or three years before I ever heard mention of the founding. Finally, I learned that the date was June 10, 1935 - the date that Dr. Bob had his last drink. But that didn't satisfy today's historians. They tinkered with dates and concluded that Dr. Bob didn't have his last drink on June 10th, that the medical convention to which he went in Atlantic City never occurred when AAs said it did, and that A.A. was founded on some other date thereabouts.

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If you asked someone when George Washington cut down the cherry tree, just think how many different answers the historians might provide. Does it matter? Today, we don't even seem to celebrate his birthday and prefer lumping all our presidents together.

Well, AAs do care. It matters to them. So I set forth all the arguments and dates long ago in my title, The Akron Genesis of Alcoholics Anonymous (http://www.dickb.com/Akron.shtml). You can study them there if you like. Long after A.A. was founded, Lois Wilson wrote that it had been founded in 1934 when drunks were coming to the Wilson home in Brooklyn. Others wanted to date it when Ebby Thacher first carried the message to Bill Wilson. T. Henry Williams often said that A.A. started right on the carpet of his Palisades home in Akron when Dr. Bob, Henrietta Seiberling, and the others in the Oxford Group knelt and prayed for Dr. Bob's recovery. Still others like to date it as of the publishing of the Big Book in the Spring of 1939. Clarence Snyder claimed he was the founder, and that the first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous was held in Cleveland on May 11, 1939. One would-be expert has now asserted that the "original" program occurred some time after that in the 1940's. And, Bill Wilson made the statement that the first A.A. group began when A.A. Number Three was cured of alcoholism, was visited by Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob in the hospital, and walked from there a "free man" - never to drink again. That happened very shortly after Dr. Bob himself got sober.

So you'll have to make up your own mind. FDR changed Thanksgiving. We call Armistice Day Veterans Day. And on and on. Which leads to the conclusion that "founding" days are perhaps less important than the founding. Personally, I'm convinced that A.A. began. I am convinced it began at Dr. Bob's Home in Akron. I am convinced that Bob and Bill agreed that it began when he took his last drink. I'm convinced that fairly soon, Bill and Bob agreed that the founding date was June 10, 1935. And thereafter, Bill Wilson attended and actually spoke at "Founders Day" each year in Akron where the "founding of A.A." on June 10, 1935 is celebrated.

Do you know when A.A. was founded? I don't. But I'm very sure it was founded because that's where I took my last drink forever and was cured.

Where did the original program come from?

I know what it was, where it began, when it began, and how it was practiced. But you'd have a heck of a time convincing a lot of AAs today. People who have never met or even read much about Bill Wilson, Dr. Bob, or the original days in Akron.

In the first place, people have chosen to call this the "flying blind" period. Yet there never was more light shining on the cure for alcoholism. Real alcoholics who really tried, who were "medically incurable," who were willing to go to any lengths, were cured in astonishing percentages. By 1938, some forty of them-called the "pioneers"-were maintaining sobriety, half or more for two years. Richard K. has produced three books now detailing who these folks were, when they got sober, and what happened to them. Their names can be found on a dozen rosters. The pictures of many are on the walls at Dr. Bob's Home in Akron. Fifty per cent got sober and stayed sober, despite the fact that many a creative A.A. amateur historian insists that the original gang all died drunk. Nonsense!

In the second place, the program came from the Bible. Maybe that's why doubters and unbelievers want to call it the "flying blind" period. The Bible was read to Bill and Bob at the Smith Home each day in the summer of 1935 by Dr. Bob's wife Anne Smith. Bob had studied the Bible all his life and began refreshing his memory as a youngster. He read the Bible straight through three times. Bob and Bill stayed up until the wee hours of the morning every day that Bill stayed at the Smith home in Akron in the summer of 1935.

Later, when asked a question about the program, Dr. Bob said: "What does the Good Book say." He often commented that the old timers felt that the answer to all their problems could be found in the Good Book. Over and over, Bob emphasized that the Book of James, the sermon on the mount (Matthew 5, 6, 7), and 1 Corinthians 13 were absolutely essential. I've written much about the specifics AAs borrowed from these three books. See The Good Book and The Big Book (http://www.dickb.com/goodbook.shtml), Why Early A.A. Succeeded (http://www.dickb.com/aabiblestudy.shtml), The Oxford Group and Alcoholics Anonymous (http://www.dickb.com/oxford.shtml), Turning Point (http://www.dickb.com/turning.shtml), When Early AAs Were Cured and Why, and my new article, "A.A., The James Club, and the Book of James" (http://www.dickb.com/AAsJamesClub.shtml). And Bob and Bill both said that the sermon on the mount contained the underlying philosophy of A.A., that 1 Corinthians 13 was favored reading, and the A.A. thought so much of the Book of James that they wanted to call their Society the "James Club." The Bible was read at every A.A. meeting in Akron for years-not Oxford Group books, not Shoemaker books, not popular Christian literature, not even much from devotionals like The Upper Room. The Bible was stressed, and AAs said so. You can read it in DR. BOB and the Good Oldtimers, the A.A. Conference Approved book published in 1980. In fact, in his last major talk to AAs-which is on tape, which has been edited and reprinted, and which can be found in A.A.'s own literature-Dr. Bob said A.A. basic ideas came from the Bible.

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