IX. A HISTORY OF THIS BOOK: FOREWORDS FROM THE FIRST FOUR EDITIONS

(pp. 176)

What you see below are plain language versions of the forewords that were printed in the original versions of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Foreword to the First Edition of Alcoholics Anonymous

We of Alcoholics Anonymous are a group of more than one hundred people who recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. To show other alcoholics precisely how we recovered is the main purpose of this book. We hope that what we have written will be so convincing that anyone who reads it will accept it as true. We think our descriptions of our experiences will help everyone to better understand what it's like to be an alcoholic. Many do not realize that alcoholics are very sick people.

Another reason we wrote this book is because we are sure that our way of living can be helpful to all people.

It is important that we remain anonymous because we are a small group right now. We won’t be able to handle the large number of requests that we expect to get once the book is published. Since most of us work full-time, we don’t have the ability to do that. We want people to understand that the work we do with alcoholics is our calling, and we are never paid for it.

Whenever members of our Fellowship write or speak publicly about alcoholism, we ask them to not use their personal name. Instead, they can just refer to themselves as “a member of Alcoholics Anonymous.”

We also ask people in the press and news media to respect this. If they don’t, it will make our work much more difficult.

We are not a typical organization. We do not charge any fees or dues. For people to become members, they only need an honest desire to stop drinking. We are not tied to any one faith, sect or denomination. We also don’t take official stands against anyone or anything. We simply wish to be helpful to those who suffer.

We are interested to hear from people who get results from this book, especially those who have started work with other alcoholics. We want to be helpful to anyone in that situation.

Questions from scientific, medical, and religious societies are welcome.

Foreword to the Second Edition of Alcoholics Anonymous

Numbers and statistics in this foreword refer to the Fellowship in 1955. Since the original Foreword to this book was written in 1939, a huge miracle has taken place. In the first edition, we shared the hope “that every alcoholic who journeys will find the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous at his destination. Already twos and threes and fives of us have sprung up in other communities.”

Sixteen years have gone by between our first edition of this book and the second edition in 1955. During that short time, Alcoholics Anonymous has grown quickly into nearly 6,000 groups with many more than 150,000 recovered alcoholics as members. Groups can be found in each of the United States and all of the provinces of Canada. A.A. has taken root in Britain, the Scandinavian countries, South Africa, South America, Mexico, Alaska, Australia, and Hawaii. Overall, we have seen A.A. spring up in 50 foreign countries and U.S. territories. Some are just starting to take shape in Asia. Many of our friends encourage us by saying that this is just the beginning, the sign of a much larger future ahead.

A conversation between a New York businessman and an Akron doctor launched the first A.A. group in Akron, Ohio, in June of 1935. Six months earlier, the businessman had been able to stop drinking after having an intense spiritual experience. This happened to him after a meeting with an alcoholic friend who had been talking with a religious group called the Oxford Group. The businessman had also been helped by Dr. William D. Silk-worth, a New York specialist in alcoholism. Dr. Silkworth is now considered to be a medical saint by A.A. members. The story of his own involvement in the early days of our Society can be found at the beginning of this book, in ‘The Doctor’s Opinion’ on page 11. The businessman learned about the deadly serious nature of alcoholism from the doctor. Although he could not accept all the beliefs of the Oxford Groups, he was convinced some of them would help alcoholics. These included a moral inventory, confessing personality defects, making amends to people who had been harmed, helpfulness to others, and belief in and dependence on a Higher Power.

Before his journey to Akron, the businessman had worked hard with many alcoholics because he believed that only an alcoholic could help another alcoholic. Unfortunately, none of the people he tried to help gave up drinking. The businessman had gone to Akron on a business trip which had gone very badly. He was far away from home and feeling upset. He wanted to drink very much and became desperate. He needed to tell his story to another alcoholic as soon as possible. If he could talk to someone who understood exactly what he was feeling, that would help him. The alcoholic he spoke to turned out to be the Akron doctor.

The doctor had also tried many things to stop his drinking and so far nothing had worked. Like the businessman, this doctor had become hopeless. When the businessman shared everything that Dr. Silkworth had told him about alcoholism, the Akron doctor felt hopeful. Thinking about drinking as a sickness with a spiritual solution changed how he felt about alcoholism. It also changed how he felt about himself. He became sober, and never drank up to the moment of his death in 1950. This seemed to prove that one alcoholic could help another in ways that no nonalcoholic could. It also showed that the hard work that one alcoholic does with another was vital to permanent recovery.

Seeing how much it had helped them to talk to each other, the New York businessman and the Akron doctor were eager to start helping other alcoholics in the same way. They started meeting with alcoholics at the Akron City Hospital. The first man they spoke with stopped drinking immediately and never drank again. Along with the businessman and the doctor, he became “A.A. member number three”! All through the summer of 1935, more and more alcoholics began meeting and talking with each other at the Akron City Hospital. Some still drank, but others were able to stop completely. When the businessman returned to New York in the fall of 1935, the first A.A. group had already been formed, though no one realized it at the time.

Soon after, a second small group formed in New York. Another group started in Cleveland in 1937. The basic ideas of A.A. began to spread across the country and more groups were being formed. People who had struggled with drinking finally started to feel hopeful. A.A. was like a light in the darkness.

Seeing this progress, the struggling groups believed it was time to offer their message and unique experience to the world. This idea became reality in the spring of 1939, when this book was first published. The membership of A.A. was about 100 people at that time. The new and growing society didn’t have a name back then. After the book was published, it was called Alcoholics Anonymous, from the title of its own book. The experimental period ended and A.A. began a new phase of its growth and evolution.

Shortly after the book was published, many things began to happen. Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick, a well-known clergyman, read and approved of it. In the fall of 1939, the editor of Liberty magazine printed a piece called “Alcoholics and God.” Right after that, a rush of 800 requests for help arrived at the brand-new New York office of A.A. Each request was carefully and personally answered. Pamphlets and books were sent out. Businessmen from existing groups began visiting with these newcomers when they traveled for work. New groups started up. And to everyone’s great surprise, it became clear that A.A.’s message could be carried in the mail as well as in person. By the end of 1939, it was estimated that 800 alcoholics were on their way to recovery.

In the spring of 1940, John D. Rockefeller Jr. hosted a dinner for many of his friends and invited A.A. members to tell their stories. News of this spread through the international press. Requests poured in again and many people went to bookstores to buy the book Alcoholics Anonymous. By March 1941, membership had shot up to 2,000. Then Jack Alexander wrote a feature article in the Saturday Evening Post. His article offered such a clear and urgent picture of A.A. that alcoholics in need of help began contacting us in truly overwhelming numbers. By the end of 1941, A.A. had 8,000 members. We were growing steadily and rapidly.

A.A. had become a national institution.

Then our Society entered a scary but exciting period of growing pains. It was facing a tough challenge. Could large numbers of former alcoholics successfully meet and work together? Would they argue about membership, leadership, and money? Would certain members try to become powerful within the organization, or grow obsessed with getting famous? Would differences in beliefs split A.A. apart? Soon A.A. was experiencing these exact problems nearly everywhere and in every group. But this frightening period helped us see how important it was to continue our work. We had to stick together or die separately. We had to unify our Fellowship or give up on our work.

We discovered the principles by which individual alcoholics could live their lives. And at the same time, we began to develop principles by which A.A. groups and A.A. as a whole could survive and function effectively. We decided that no alcoholic person could be kept from joining A.A. We decided that our leaders would serve but never make and enforce rules. We decided that each group would be independent and that there would be no Twelve Step experts. We would not charge fees or dues. Our expenses would be paid for by voluntary contributions from members. We avoided creating rigid organization, even in our service centers. Our public relations would focus on attracting interested people rather than promoting A.A. We decided that all members should stay anonymous when speaking to the press, radio, TV, and films. And we would absolutely never say that we approve of other organizations, never create formal partnerships with other groups, and never get involved in public arguments.

These principles helped us create A.A.’s Twelve Traditions, which you can find on page 154 of this book.

These principles were not meant to be rules or laws, but they became widely accepted by A.A. members. In 1950, they were confirmed by our first International Conference held in Cleveland. Today the remarkable unity of A.A. is one of the greatest strengths of our Society.

While we were deciding how to handle our growing pains, public acceptance of A.A. grew by leaps and bounds. There were two main reasons for this: large numbers of members recovering, and large numbers of reunited families. These impressed people everywhere. Of the alcoholics who came to A.A. and really tried, 50% got sober right away and remained that way, and 25% sobered up after some relapses. The remaining 25% who continued to work with A.A. showed improvement. Other people came to a few A.A. meetings and at first decided they didn’t want the program. But many of these people—about two out of three—began to return to meetings over time.

Another reason that more people began to accept A.A. was the work of our program’s friends—friends in medicine, religion, and the press, together with many others who spoke well of us and spread the news. Without such support, A.A. would have made much slower progress. Some of the recommendations made by A.A.’s medical and religious friends can be found in this book.

Alcoholics Anonymous is not a religious organization. A.A. doesn’t take a specific medical point of view. But we do cooperate with people who practice medicine and with faith leaders of all kinds.

Since anyone can be an alcoholic, A.A. members are as diverse as the people who live in the United States. This is also true in other countries. In terms of religion, our membership includes Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Hindus, Muslims, and Buddhists. More than 15% of us are women.

Right now, our membership is growing at a rate of about 20% each year. Since there are several million actual and potential alcoholics in the world, we know we have only begun to solve the problem. It’s very likely that A.A. will only be able to help a certain percentage of alcoholics. When it comes to alcoholism recovery programs, ours is not the only one. But we hope that all people who are struggling to find an answer can find one in the pages of this book. And that they will soon join us on the high road to a new freedom.

Foreword to the Third Edition of Alcoholics Anonymous

By March 1976, when this edition went to the printer, the total worldwide membership of Alcoholics Anonymous was roughly one million, with almost 28,000 groups meeting in more than 90 countries.

Surveys of groups in the United States and Canada show that A.A. isn’t just helping more and more people. It is also helping a wider and wider variety of people. Women now make up more than a quarter of our membership. For newer members, women are nearly one-third. Seven percent of A.A. members surveyed are under 30 years old. Many are teenagers.

This leads us to believe that the basic principles of the A.A. program are helpful to individuals with many different lifestyles, and also that the program has made recovery possible for people of many different nationalities. The Twelve Steps that summarize the program may be called los Doce Pasos in one country, les Douze Étapes in another, but they show people exactly the same path to recovery that was created by the earliest members of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Although we have seen a huge increase in the size and diversity of this Fellowship, the work we do is still simple and personal. Each day, somewhere in the world, recovery begins when one alcoholic talks with another alcoholic, sharing experience, strength, and hope.

Foreword to the Fourth Edition of Alcoholics Anonymous

The fourth edition of Alcoholics Anonymous was published in November 2001, at the start of a new millennium. Since the third edition was published in 1976, worldwide membership of A.A. has just about doubled. We now have two million or more members, with nearly 100,800 groups meeting in approximately 150 countries around the world.

Writing and publishing played a major role in A.A.’s growth. In the past 25 years, there has been a huge increase in translations of our basic literature into many languages. In country after country where the A.A. seed was planted, it has taken root. Slowly at first, then growing by leaps and bounds whenever literature is available. Currently, Alcoholics Anonymous has been translated into 43 languages.

As the message of recovery has reached larger numbers of people, it has also touched the lives of a wider variety of suffering alcoholics. When the phrase “We are people who normally would not mix” (page 17 of the fourth edition) was written in 1939, it referred to a Fellowship that was mostly men (and a few women) with similar social, ethnic, and economic backgrounds. Like so much of A.A.’s basic text, those words have proved to be far more visionary than the founding members could ever have imagined. The stories added to this edition show a membership whose ages, genders, races, and cultures have become more diverse. They also show that our Fellowship has touched virtually everyone that the first 100 A.A. members could have hoped to reach.

While our literature has protected the original A.A. message, changes in global society have driven us to create new customs and practices within the Fellowship. For example, A.A. members with computers can now participate in meetings online, sharing with fellow alcoholics across the country or around the world. In any meeting, anywhere, A.A.s share experience, strength, and hope with each other so they can stay sober and help other alcoholics. Computer-to-computer or face-to-face, A.A.s speak the language of the heart in all its power and simplicity.