RESOURCES | SELF-HELP GROUPS | ALCHOHOLICS ANONYMOUS
Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is a worldwide fellowship of men and women who share a desire to stop drinking alcohol and subsequently maintain their sobriety. AA suggests members completely abstain from alcohol, regularly attend meetings and work the 12-steps as outlined in the "Big Book". This program has designated a primary purpose; to help members "stay sober and help other alcoholics achieve sobriety." AA first created the 12-steps used by similar recovery groups. AA was founded in 1935 by Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith. Both men remained sober throughout the duration of their lives and died sober.
Alcoholics Anonymous is active all over the world and shows membership numbers in the millions. Studies have shown that AA has been several times more effective than any other recovery support group in history. For more information about Alcoholics Anonymous in the South Western Idaho Region visit Alcoholics Anonymous Home Page
More About Alcoholics Anonymous
In 1937, Wilson and Smith could count 40 alcoholic men they helped to get sober, and two years later they counted 100 members, including one woman. To promote the fellowship, Wilson and other members wrote the initially-titled book, Alcoholics Anonymous: The Story of How More Than One Hundred Men Have Recovered from Alcoholism, from which AA drew its name. Informally known as "The Big Book" (with its first 164 pages virtually unchanged since the 1939 edition), it suggests a twelve-step program in which members admit that they are powerless over alcohol and need help from a "higher power"; seek guidance and strength through prayer and meditation from a God (or a higher power) of their own understanding; take a moral inventory with care to include resentments; list and become ready to remove character defects; list and make amends to those harmed, and then try to help other alcoholics recover. The second half of the book, "Personal Stories" (subject to additions, removal and retitling in subsequent editions), is made of AA members' redemptive autobiographical sketches.
In 1941, interviews on American radio and favorable articles in US magazines, including a piece by Jack Alexander in The Saturday Evening Post, led to increased book sales and membership. By 1946, as the growing fellowship quarreled over structure, purpose, and authority, as well as finances and publicity, Wilson began to form and promote what became known as AA's twelve traditions, guidelines for an altruistic, unaffiliated, non-coercive, and non-hierarchical structure that limited AA's purpose to only helping alcoholics on a non-professional level while shunning publicity. Eventually he gained formal adoption and inclusion of the Twelve Traditions in all future editions of the Big Book. At the 1955 St. Louis convention in Missouri, Wilson relinquished stewardship of AA to the General Service Conference, as AA grew to millions of members internationally.
Ashwood Recovery provides alcohol and drug classes in Boise Idaho. As an alcohol rehabilitation center in Idaho we provide assessments, group therapy, individual counseling and relapse prevention. If you or a loved one need addiction treatment in Idaho please feel free to contact us.
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