Though anonymity is the hallmark of Alcoholics Anonymous, its founder’s name is well-known: Bill Wilson, often called Bill W., bought his last drink 80 years ago — on Dec. 11, 1934 — before entering the hospital where he had the epiphany that became the foundation of AA.
Here’s how the magazine described what happened:
Psychiatrists now generally consider alcoholism a disease, specifically a psychoneurosis. Alcoholics generally drink, not just because they like liquor, but to escape from something—a mother fixation, inferiority feelings, an intolerable domestic situation, social or economic maladjustment. They may suffer the torments of the damned, even while drinking themselves into a stupor, and especially in the brief period between waking up with a remorseful, clattering hangover and getting down the first drink of the day. Psychiatrists try to help them by discovering the hidden reason for drinking and showing how it can be removed. But cynics in sanatoriums, watching a sober man walk out the door full of good intentions, often bet on how many days or weeks will elapse before he is back. Nagging by families usually makes things worse.
About five years ago a traveling salesman named Bill, after repeated alcoholic relapses, was pronounced hopeless by his doctors. Bill was an agnostic, but some one asked him if he couldn’t believe that there was some power bigger than himself—call it God or whatever he liked—that would help him not to drink. The idea was that though Bill was always willing to let himself down, he might be more reluctant to let God down. Bill tried it, found that he had no trouble resisting the desire to drink. He was cured. He told his discovery to others, and the cure spread. These reformed drunkards called themselves “Alcoholics Anonymous,” now number about 400 in towns all over the U. S. They do their missionary work on their own time, as an avocation.
Today, AA estimates that it has over 2 million members worldwide.
Read the full 1940 story, here in the TIME Vault: “Alcoholics Anonymous”
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