Dr. Robert Smith takes his last drink, and Alcoholics Anonymous is founded in Akron, Ohio, United States, by him and Bill Wilson.
Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is an international mutual aid fellowship dedicated to abstinence-based recovery from alcoholism through its spiritually-inclined Twelve Step program. Following its Twelve Traditions, AA and autonomous AA groups are self-supporting through the strictly voluntary contributions from members only. The Traditions also establish AA as non-professional, non-denominational, and apolitical, with an avowed desire to stop drinking as its sole requirement for membership. Though AA has not endorsed the disease model of alcoholism, to which its program is nonetheless sympathetic, its wider acceptance is partly due to many members independently promulgating it. A recent scientific review shows that by many measures AA does as well or better than other clinical interventions or no treatment. In particular, AA produces better abstinence rates with lower medical costs. As of 2020, having spread to diverse cultures, including geopolitical areas normally resistant to grassroots movements, AA has estimated its worldwide membership to be over two million with 75% of those in the U.S. and Canada.AA marks 1935 for its founding when Wall Street analyst and newly recovering alcoholic Bill Wilson (Bill W.), then reeling from a failed proxy fight, sought to stay sober by commiserating with detoxing surgeon Bob Smith (Dr. Bob). Wilson put to Smith that alcoholism was not a failure of will or morals, but a malady from which he had recovered as a member of the Christian revivalist Oxford Group. After leaving the Oxford Group to form a fellowship of alcoholics only, Wilson and Smith, along with other early members, wrote Alcoholics Anonymous: The Story of How More Than One Hundred Men Have Recovered From Alcoholism, from which AA acquired its name. Published in 1939 and commonly called "the Big Book", it contains AA's Twelve Step recovery program. Later editions included the Twelve Traditions, first adopted in 1946 to formalize and unify the fellowship as a "benign anarchy".The Twelve Steps are presented as a suggested self-improvement program of initially admitting powerlessness over alcohol and acknowledging its damage, the listing of and striving to correct personal failings, the making of amends for past misdeeds, and, in order to stay recovered, the pursuit of continued spiritual development while helping other alcoholics towards sobriety through the Steps. The Steps also suggest the healing aid of an unspecified God"as we understood Him"but are accommodating to agnostic, atheist, and other non-theist members.The Twelve Traditions are guidelines for AA as a whole, as well as for how members and groups should interact within AA and advising on conduct as to how it might affect AA "as a whole". Besides making a self declaration of being an alcoholic the only requirement to join, the Traditions hold that dogma and hierarchies are to be avoided and that "Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions"; without threat of retribution or means of enforcement, they urge members to remain anonymous in public media To keep out of public controversy, they declare that AA will have no opinions on outside issues or involvement with other causes, and that members or groups should not use AA to gain wealth, property or prestige. Within AA its groups are autonomous and self-supportingdeclining outside contributions, but they are barred from lending the AA name or financial assistance or any kind of support to other entities or causes.With AA's permission, subsequent fellowships such as Narcotics Anonymous and Gamblers Anonymous have adapted the Twelve Steps and the Twelve Traditions to their addiction recovery programs.
Robert Holbrook Smith (August 8, 1879 – November 16, 1950), also known as Dr. Bob, was an American physician and surgeon who founded Alcoholics Anonymous with Bill Wilson (more commonly known as Bill W.).