Let’s Be Friendly With Our Friends:

Friends on the Alcoholism Front

by Bill W.WE ARE TOLD there are 4,500,0001 alcoholics inAmerica. Up to now, A.A. has sobered up per-haps 250,0002 of them. That’s about one in 20, orfive percent of the total. This is a brave begin-ning, full of significance and hope for those whostill suffer. Yet these figures show that we havemade only a fair-sized dent on this vast worldhealth problem. Millions are still sick and othermillions soon will be.

These facts of alcoholism should give usgood reason to think, and to be humble. Surely,we can be grateful for every agency or methodthat tries to solve the problem of alcoholism —whether of medicine, religion, education, orresearch. We can be open-minded toward allsuch efforts, and we can be sympathetic whenthe ill-advised ones fail. We can remember thatA.A. itself ran for years on trial-and-error. Asindividual A.A.’s, we can and should work withthose that promise success — even a littlesuccess.

Nor ought we allow our special convictions orprejudices to overcome our good sense andgoodwill. For example, numbers of us think thatalcoholism is mainly a spiritual problem.Therefore, we have little time for biochemistswho would like us to believe that drunks drinkmostly because they are bedeviled by badmetabolisms. Likewise, we are apt to get red-hotwhen psychiatrists wave aside all issues of right

Footnotes on last page

Copyright © 1958 by The A.A. Grapevine, Inc.(March 1958 issue); reprinted with permission

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or wrong and insist that the realproblem of the alcoholic always gath-ers around the neurotic compulsionswhich he innocently acquired as achild, becoming maladjustedbecause of his erring parents. Or,when social workers say that thetrue causes of alcoholism are to beseen in faulty social conditions, weare apt to get restive and say, “Whocares a hang what the causes are,anyway? A.A. can fix drunks withoutgetting into all that.”

In similar fashion, some of usA.A.’s decry every attempt at thera-py save our own. We point to certainclinics and committees that haveaccomplished little; we complain thathuge sums are being wasted by stateand private sources. We roundlythump every experimental drug thatturns out badly. We belittle theattempts of the men and women of

religion to deal with us drunks. Webelieve that sound alcohol educationis a good thing. But we are also apt tothink that A.A. — indirectly — isdoing most of it, anyhow.

Now this may seem to be a confes-sion of the sins of A.A., and in somepart it is. It is also a confession that,at one time or another, I have myselfheld many of these often shortsight-ed views and prejudices. But I domake haste to add that what I’ve justsaid applies far more to A.A.’s pastthan to the present.

Today, the vast majority of us wel-come any new light that can bethrown on the alcoholic’s mysteriousand baffling malady. We don’t caretoo much whether new and valuableknowledge issues from a test tube, apsychiatrist’s couch, or revealingsocial studies. We are glad of anykind of education that accuratelyinforms the public and changes itsage-old attitude toward the drunk.More and more, we regard all wholabor in the total field of alcoholismas our companions on a march fromdarkness into light. We see that wecan accomplish together what wecould never accomplish in separationand in rivalry.

Preoccupied with A.A. and itsaffairs, I must admit that I’ve giventoo little thought to the total alcoholproblem. But I do have a glimpse ofit, and that glimpse I would like toshare with you.

Take those 4,500,000 drunks inAmerica. What is their conditionnow? What is being done, and whatmight be done for them? What aboutthe next generation — yet another4,000,000 who are children and ado-lescents? Excepting for what A.A.

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can do, must they be victims, too?Let’s start at the bottom of the

heap. Our mental institutions areflooded with the brain-damaged andthe deeply psychopathic. Here andthere a few find their way back, butnot many. Most are gone beyondrecall; the next world is their besthope. But more research upon theircondition may add to our knowledgeof prevention for the benefit of otherswho are approaching the jumping-offplace. Great numbers of alcoholicsare to be found in prisons. Eitheralcohol directly got them into thejams that landed them there, or theyhad to drink in order to commit thecrimes toward which they had com-pulsive tendencies. Here research —medical, psychiatric and social — isplainly needed. A.A. can’t do this job,but others have already made a greatbeginning.

Every large city has its skid row.The so-called derelict alcoholicsdoubtless number several hundredsof thousands. Some are so “psycho”and so damaged that the mental hos-pital is their destination. The rest ofthese countless men and womenclog police blotters, courts, jails, andhospitals. To them, the cost in suffer-ing is incalculable; the cost to socie-ty, even in dollars only, is immense.Huge numbers of these, not yetlegally insane, are thus condemnedto mill hopelessly about. Can any-thing be done? In all probability, yes.Perhaps these sufferers can betransferred to farms where, in some

sort of “quarantine” confinement,they can do enough work to supportthemselves, be in better health, andsave their respective cities greatsums and trouble. This and otherrelated experiments are beginning tooffer much more hope for the skid-rower. Individual A.A.’s are helping,but most of the work and the moneywill have to come from elsewhere.

What now of the millions of alco-holics who haven’t hit prisons, asy-lums, or skid rows? These, we aretold, constitute the vast majority. Atthe moment, their best hope ofrecovery seems to be A.A. Well then,why haven’t these millions come tous? Or why haven’t they tried to getwell by some other method?

Any A.A. can give you a quick andvery accurate answer: “They aren’tready — they don’t know how sickthey really are. If they did, theywould flock to treatment, just asthough they had diabetes or cancer.”The problem, therefore, is how toexpose them to the facts that willconvince them they are gravely ill.

More than anything, the answerseems to be in education — educa-tion in schoolrooms, in medical col-leges, among clergymen andemployers, in families, and in thepublic at large. From cradle to grave,the drunk and the potential alcoholicwill have to be completely surround-ed by true and deep understandingand by a continuous barrage of infor-mation: the facts about his illness, itssymptoms, its grim seriousness.

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Why should an alcoholic have to waituntil he is 55 and horribly mangledto find out that he is a very sick man,when enough education of the rightkind might have convinced him at 30or 35?

History has shown that, whatevertheir several merits, neither preach-ing nor moralizing nor other effortsat reform have ever made muchimpression on alcoholics as a whole.But factual education about the mal-ady has in the last few years showngreat promise. Even now, we are see-ing a great many younger peoplecoming to A.A. as a direct result ofthe recently more widespread infor-mation about the disease.

We A.A.’s have done a lot of thiskind of education, and friends out-side A.A. have done even more. As aresult, right now maybe half a mil-lion of the U.S.A.’s drunks are tryingto get well — or at least thinkingseriously about getting well — eitheron their own, or by actual treatment.Maybe this guess is too high, but it isby no means fanciful. Sound educa-tion on alcoholism, and far more of itat all levels, will clearly pay off.

Education will not only pay off innumbers treated; it can pay off evenmore handsomely in prevention.This means factual education, prop-erly presented to children and ado-lescents, at home and at school.Heretofore, much of this educationhas attacked the immorality of drink-ing rather than the disease of alco-holism.

We A.A.’s can speak with a lot ofconviction about this. Most of ourchildren have been emotionallybunged up by our drinking behavior,“maladjusted” for sure. Large num-bers of them should have turned intoproblem drinkers by now. But theyhave done no such thing. Alcoholism,or potential alcoholism, is a rare thingto see among the children of A.A. par-ents. Yet we never forbid them todrink, and we don’t preach if they do.They simply learn by what they haveseen and by what they hear that alco-holism is a ghastly business and thattheir chances are about one in 15 ofcontracting the illness of alcoholism ifthey drink. Most of them don’t drinkat all. Others drink sparingly. Theremainder, after getting into a fewominous jams, are able to quit — andthey promptly do. This seems to bepreventive education at its best.

Therefore, it is entirely possiblethat many of these A.A. attitudes andmethods can be widely applied tokids of all kinds.

Now who is going to do all thiseducation? Obviously, it is both acommunity job and a job for special-ists. Individually, we A.A.’s can help,but A.A. as such cannot, and shouldnot, get directly into this field.Therefore, we must rely on otheragencies, on outside friends and theirwillingness to supply great amountsof money and effort — money andeffort which will steer the alcoholictoward treatment as never before,and which will prevent the develop-

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ment of alcoholism in millions of pre-disposed kids who will otherwisetake the road we know so well.

As the following fragment of histo-ry will show, great and promisingprogress, outside of A.A., has beenmade in the field of research, treat-ment, rehabilitation, and education.It happened that I was a witness tothe beginning of modern methods inthese areas, and this is what I saw:

I well remember Dr. H. W.Haggard of the Yale University facul-ty. In 1930, four years before I

sobered up, this good physician waswondering what ailed drunks. Hewanted to begin research — mostly atest-tube project at the beginning —to see what their chemistry was allabout. This so amused some of hiscolleagues that no funds were forth-coming from the Yale treasury. ButDr. Haggard was a man with a mis-sion. He put his hands in his ownpockets and begged personal friendsto do the same. His project launched,he and an associate, Dr. Henderson,began work.

Later, in 1937, the renowned phys-iologist Dr. Anton Carlson and agroup of interested scientists formeda subsidiary body called theResearch Council on Problems ofAlcohol. This was to be a more inclu-sive effort. Some of us early NewYork A.A.’s went to their meetings —sometimes to cheer and sometimes,I must confess, to jeer. (A.A., yousee, then thought it had a monopolyon the drunk-fixing business!)

Presently, the Research Counciltook on a live wire, Dr. E. M. Jellinek.He wasn’t an M.D., but he was a“doctor” of pretty much everythingelse. Learning all about drunks wasjust a matter of catching up on hisback reading. Though a prodigy oflearning, he was neverthelessmighty popular with us alcoholics.We called him a “dry alcoholic,”because he could identify with us sowell. Even his nickname was endear-ing — his Hungarian father haddubbed him “Bunky,” which, in thatlanguage, means “the little radish.”“The little radish” got down to busi-ness at once.

At length, Bunky and Dr. Haggardjoined forces and began in 1940 topublish the Quarterly Journal ofStudies on Alcohol, which devoteditself to articles covering the totalfield of alcohol research and inquiry.This brought Dr. Jellinek into part-nership and close association withDr. Haggard.

In 1943, Dr. Haggard and Bunkyorganized The Yale School for

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Alcohol Studies.3 It was seen that alaboratory and a technical journalcouldn’t get far unless a wider audi-ence was found. The idea wasadvanced that everyµbody whobumped into drunks or the alcoholproblem should be represented atthe school.

A strangely assorted crowd turnedup at the early sessions. I well remem-ber the venerable Mr. Colvin, he whoused to run on the Prohibition ticketfor the U.S. Presidency. At the otherpole of violent opinion, there werecertain representatives of the liquorindustry. Sandwiched in betweenthese were a sprinkling of clergymen,social workers, judges, cops, proba-tion officers, and educators, and a cer-tain number of us drunks. Everybodyhad his own ax to grind and his owncast-iron convictions. The drys andwets were hardly on speaking terms.Every faction wanted us drunks toagree with them. This was very flat-tering, but we naturally took the inde-pendent course and agreed with prac-tically nobody!

It was out of this unpromisingmiscellany that Drs. Haggard andJellinek had to bring order. The wetshad to be convinced they couldn’tbrush the alcohol problem under thebed; neither could those drys go onscaring every drinker by brandish-ing before him a hobnailed liver. WeA.A.’s had to see the enormity of thetotal alcohol problem and to face thefact that we probably weren’t goingto dry up the world overnight. The

school threw in its research findings;everybody else contributed what hehad, or thought he had; and Bunkyfinally showed us that we had to facethe actual facts together and befriendly about it besides. His was astroke of diplomacy; it was perhapsthe first beginning of a comprehen-sive and statesmanlike approach tothe problem of alcohol in America.

In the next year, 1944, there weretwo signal events. The Yale groupopened up a clinic where there wouldbe plenty of live drunks to researchand to treat experimentally. Here RayMcCarthy, as first administrator,began to sweat out the clinic methodwith his first batch of alcoholics.

Then came Marty Mann. As arecovered alcoholic, she knew publicattitudes had to be changed, thatpeople had to know that alcoholism

was a disease and alcoholics couldbe helped. She developed a plan foran organization to conduct a vigor-ous program of public education andto organize citizens’ committees all

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over the country. She brought herplan to me. I was enthusiastic, butfelt scientific backing was essential;so the plan was sent to Bunky, andhe came down to meet with us. Hesaid the plan was sound and the timewas ripe, and he agreed with me thatMarty was the one to do the job.

Originally financed by the tirelessDr. Haggard and his friends, Martystarted her big task. I cannot detailin this space the great accomplish-ments of Marty and her associates inthe present day National Council onAlcoholism.4 But I can speak myconviction that no other singleagency has done more to educatethe public, to open up hospitaliza-tion, and to set in motion all mannerof constructive projects, than thisone. Growing pains there have beenaplenty, but today the N.C.A. resultsspeak for themselves.

In 1945, Dr. Selden Bacon, thenoted sociologist, was appointedchairman of the first program to besupported by state funds, theConnecticut Commission onAlcoholism. This first state effortwas the direct result of the work ofDr. Bacon and the Yale group. Ourfriend Selden has since brought hisimmense energy and the finest per-ceptions of his profession to the aidof us alcoholics. He is without doubtone of the best authorities from thesocial point of view that we nowhave, I much wish I could name andtell you of many another dedicatedfriend of that early pioneering time.

They have since been followed byothers, who are today legion. To allof them, I send the timeless grati-tude of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Their combined efforts, oftensparked by A.A.’s, have since flow-ered to this general effect: Four uni-versities are now running replicas ofthe Yale School. Three thousand pub-lic and private hospitals have beenopened to alcoholics. Industry is rev-olutionizing its attitude toward itsalcoholic employees. Penal institu-tions, police, and judges alike havetaken new heart. Citizens’ commit-tees in large numbers are attackingthe total problem in their several com-munities. Over 30 U.S. states and themajority of Canadian provinces haveprograms of rehabilitation and treat-ment. Many clergy groups are edu-cating their co-workers. Psychiatricresearch and treatment are makingtelling strides. Test-tube devotees areworking hopefully in their laborato-ries. The American Medical Associa -tion has officially declared alcoholismto be a chronic illness, and has acti-vated its own committee on alco-holism. Medical colleges are begin-ning to include this subject in theircourses. Sparked by Bunky, theWorld Health Organi zation is carry-ing all this good news around theworld. School textbooks are beingmodernized. In the cause of generaleducation, the press, radio, and televi-sion are pouring out floods of it daily.This has all happened in the 28 yearssince Dr. Haggard first decided to

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find out what makes drunks tick.Every one of these pioneers in the

total field will generously say thathad it not been for the living proof ofrecovery in A.A., they could not havegone on. A.A. was the lodestar ofhope and help that kept them at it.

So let us work alongside all these

projects of promise to hasten therecovery of those millions who havenot yet found their way out. Thesevaried labors do not need our specialendorsement; they need only a help-ing hand when, as individuals, wecan possibly give it.

Today, Bill W.’s suggestion is being earnestly followed.The A.A. General Service Board has a Committee onCooperation with the Professional Community; so hasthe General Service Conference. These committeesenable the Fellowship to put the recommended friendli-ness into action on a continent-wide basis. The boardcommittee offers cooperation to government and privateagencies and to professional people and organizationsthroughout the alcoholism field.

1 Estimate as of 1958.2 Current (2016) estimate of A.A. member-ship worldwide: more than two million.

3 The School for Alcohol Studies is nowat Rutgers University, New Brunswick,N.J. It publishes the former QuarterlyJournal — now a monthly called Journalof Studies on Alcohol.

4 After retiring from her position as exec-utive director, Marty Mann servedN.C.A. as founder-consultant until herdeath in 1980. Today N.C.A. is theNational Council on Alcoholism andDrug Dependence (NCADD).

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