The pre-history of AA told by two of the people who were part of the most important events; Ebby Thatcher, the man who brought the message to Bill W. tells how he was helped to sobriety by Rowland Hazard and other Oxford Group members, how he carried the message to Bill and the early developments of the Alcoholics Anonymous fellowship. AA Co-Founder Bill Wilson talks about the two streams of influence that led to AA. First, Bill tells the story of Rowland Hazard; how having failed to get lasting sobriety with help from Doctor Carl Jung he took Jung's final piece of advice to immerse himself in some sort of spiritual program. How Rowland practicing the principles of the Oxford Group brought the message of sobriety to Ebby Thatcher. Then, during the second part of Bill's talk he tells how Dr. Silkworth came to an understanding of Alcoholism and its treatment and how Dr. Silkworth helped him. First by preparing Bill to receive the message, then by providing him a medical detox and professional assurance, and then giving him the advice that enabled him to carry the message to the other AA Co-Founder Dr. Bob Smith, Transcribed from Historic Sound RecordingsThe text is a direct transcript of the talks which are available at Audible.com/historyofrecovery

This is both a fascinating history of the formative years of Alcoholics Anonymous, as well as the bitter-sweet tale of the troubled man Bill W. always referred to as "my sponsor." In 1934, Ebby Thatcher called an old drinking buddy to tell him about the happiness he was finding in sobriety. His friend's name was Bill Wilson, and this book is the story of their life-long friendship. "Deeply informative and moving, a valuable contribution to the history of A.A. A 'must' reading for anyone interested in one of the more fascinating chapters in A.A.'s history."--Nell Wing, Retired A.A. Archivist and Bill Wilson's Secretary

Using direct quotes from sound recordings of Bill and biographical information about Dr Silkworth the events around Alcoholics Anonymous Co-Founder Bill Wilson finding lasting sobriety during his third treatment at Towns Hospital are examined in detail. The life of Dr Silkworth and his work with alcoholics and addicts is covered. The attitudes, customs and laws of the United States towards alcohol and drugs underwent many changes during this period and the role of these changes in the unfolding events is looked at.

Reveals the history of our struggle with alcoholism and the emergence of a search for sobriety that is as old as our nation. In Drunks, Christopher Finan introduces us to a colorful cast of characters who were integral in America’s moral journey to understanding alcoholism. There's the remarkable Iroquois leader named Handsome Lake, a drunk who stopped drinking and dedicated his life to helping his people achieve sobriety. In the early nineteenth century, the idealistic and energetic “Washingtonians,” a group of reformed alcoholics, led the first national movement to save men like themselves. After the Civil War, doctors began to recognize that chronic drunkenness is an illness, and Dr. Leslie Keeley invented a “gold cure” that was dispensed at more than a hundred clinics around the country. But most Americans rejected a scientific explanation of alcoholism. A century after the ignominious death of Charles Adams came Carrie Nation. The wife of a drunk, she destroyed bars with a hatchet in her fury over what alcohol had done to her family. Prohibition became the law of the land, but nothing could stop the drinking. Finan also tells the dramatic story of Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith, who helped each other stay sober and then created AA, which survived its tumultuous early years and finally proved that alcoholics could stay sober for a lifetime. This is narrative history at its best: entertaining and authoritative, an important portrait of one of America’s great liberation movements and essential reading for anyone involved in the addiction community.

Jim Burwell The Early History of Alcoholics AnonymousOne of the first longtime sober members of AA talks about the people, events and the development of ideas and practices that created AA Ebby, Bill Wilson and the Oxford Group Hank Parkhurst, Ruth Hock and the Writing of the Big Book How AA Got the name Alcoholics Anonymous Jack Alexander and the Saturday Evening Post Article The 12 Traditions The Circumstances that Led Up to AA Self-Governance by the General Service Conference

The Book That Started It All Hardcover

A 75th anniversary e-book version of the most important and practical self-help book ever written, Alcoholics Anonymous. Here is a special deluxe edition of a book that has changed millions of lives and launched the modern recovery movement: Alcoholics Anonymous. This edition not only reproduces the original 1939 text of Alcoholics Anonymous, but as a special bonus features the complete 1941 Saturday Evening Post article “Alcoholics Anonymous” by journalist Jack Alexander, which, at the time, did as much as the book itself to introduce millions of seekers to AA’s program. Alcoholics Anonymous has touched and transformed myriad lives, and finally appears in a volume that honors its posterity and impact.

The Soul of Sponsorship explores the relationship of Bill Wilson, cofounder of Alcoholics Anonymous, and his spiritual adviser and friend, Father Ed Dowling. Many might consider that such a remarkable individual as Bill Wilson, who was the primary author of AA literature, would be able to deal with many of life's problems on his own. Reading The Soul of Sponsorship will illuminate and answer the question of how Father Ed, an Irish Catholic Jesuit priest who was not an alcoholic, was able to be of such great help to Bill Wilson. Part of AA's Twelfth Step reminds us "to carry this message to alcoholics," and The Soul of Sponsorship illustrates how sober alcoholics still need the principles of the Twelve Steps brought to them by friends, sponsors, and spiritual advisers. Some of the problems faced by Bill Wilson were: - depression in recovery - dependency issues - whether or not to experiment with LSD - the place of money and power in AA - knowing God's plan and will - learning from mistakes Father Ed taught Bill the importance of "discernment." In Father Ed's Jesuit tradition, discernment was a gift, passed down to him from St. Ignatius, the founder of the Jesuits, who described his own struggle with discernment in The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. The Twelve Steps of AA and The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius presuppose that there is a caring God whose will can be known. The act of tuning in to God's action at one's center is discernment. The big question is, how do you know your Higher Power is speaking and revealing Himself through your feelings and desires? For the good of AA and himself, Bill learned to listen to his desires, be aware of his inner dynamics, and tune into the action of God within. Doing this meant learning to recognize and identify his personal movements -- those inner promptings and attractions often called emotions or affections -- which are part of ordinary human experiences. The person who helped Bill grow in discernment was Father Ed, the Jesuit priest with a cane who limped into the New York AA clubhouse one sleet-filled November night in 1940. The two "fellow travelers," Father Ed Dowling and Bill Wilson, gave each other perhaps the greatest gift friends can give: calling on each to know who he is -- before God.

From the Laws of Mount Misery: There are no laws in psychiatry. Now, from the author of the riotous, moving, bestselling classic, The House of God, comes a lacerating and brilliant novel of doctors and patients in a psychiatric hospital. Mount Misery is a prestigious facility set in the rolling green hills of New England, its country club atmosphere maintained by generous corporate contributions. Dr. Roy Basch (hero of The House of God) is lucky enough to train there *only to discover doctors caught up in the circus of competing psychiatric theories, and patients who are often there for one main reason: they've got good insurance. From the Laws of Mount Misery: Your colleagues will hurt you more than your patients. On rounds at Mount Misery, it's not always easy for Basch to tell the patients from the doctors: Errol Cabot, the drug cowboy whose practice provides him with guinea pigs for his imaginative prescription cocktails . . . Blair Heiler, the world expert on borderlines (a diagnosis that applies to just about everybody) . . . A. K. Lowell, née Aliyah K. Lowenschteiner, whose Freudian analytic technique is so razor sharp it prohibits her from actually speaking to patients . . . And Schlomo Dove, the loony, outlandish shrink accused of having sex with a beautiful, well-to-do female patient. From the Laws of Mount Misery: Psychiatrists specialize in their defects. For Basch the practice of psychiatry soon becomes a nightmare in which psychiatrists compete with one another to find the best ways to reduce human beings to blubbering drug-addled pods, or incite them to an extreme where excessive rage is the only rational response, or tie them up in Freudian knots. And all the while, the doctors seem less interested in their patients' mental health than in a host of other things *managed care insurance money, drug company research grants and kickbacks, and their own professional advancement. From the Laws of Mount Misery: In psychiatry, first comes treatment, then comes diagnosis. What The House of God did for doctoring the body, Mount Misery does for doctoring the mind. A practicing psychiatrist, Samuel Shem brings vivid authenticity and extraordinary storytelling gifts to this long-awaited sequel, to create a novel that is laugh-out-loud hilarious, terrifying, and provocative. Filled with biting irony and a wonderful sense of the absurd, Mount Misery tells you everything you'll never learn in therapy. And it's a hell of a lot funnier.

A Secular Sobriety will help alcoholics and addicts to understand the fellowship and program of Alcoholics Anonymous "without having to accept anyone else's beliefs or having to deny their own." It includes a secular and non-sexist version of the first 164 pages of the Big Book bringing a 78 year old text into the 21st century. A Secular Sobriety brings truth to AA's claim to be "spiritual, but not religious." The author offers insightful commentary regarding AA's fellowship, program, organization and its primary text. Succeeding over the misery of addiction is within the reach of any person regardless of personal beliefs. There is no reason for religious conversion to be a part of any 12 Step program.