Not-God (67 page)

Final resolution was sought at the 1969 General Service Conference:
cf
. “Final Report,” pp. 16-17: “Problem of A.A. Member and Pills: Strength of A.A. is Single-Mindedness.” Yet the 1976 change of pamphlet title cited at the end of note #34 above, seems to testify that the matter had not yet been settled. Note that the change is in both its terms to more restriction: from “Sedatives and Stimulants” to “Drug Abuse,” and from “the Alcoholic” to “the A.A. Member.”

38
    Many who recognize that the
program
of Alcoholics Anonymous affords the best hope of recovery to those addicted to drugs other than alcohol have argued that A.A. should therefore open the doors of
fellowship
membership to non-alcoholics so addicted. This is a difficult and emotional point, as discussion in which the author participated at the Rutgers University Summer School of Alcohol Studies in July 1978 amply attested. Cogent arguments may be offered on each side of the question. Yet awareness of A.A.’s history conjoined with awareness of the histories of other such endeavors (the Washingtonians, for example) raises the deeper question: would Alcoholics Anonymous
still be
“Alcoholics Anonymous” if it did not set this example of accepting limitation? Could the program itself survive if the fellowship ceased itself to live its program?

39
    
AACA
, p. 127.

40
    The theme of “strength from weakness” was examined above, p. 125 and especially note #43 to it; the point will be further explored in
Chapter Nine
.

41
    The best single citation for this understanding of life in community is Roberto Mangabeira Unger,
Knowledge and Politics
(New York: Free Press, 1975), here truly the work as a whole, but
cf
. especially pp. 215-222 on “the paradox of sociability” and the final chapter, “The Theory of Organic Groups,” pp. 236-295, and most especially within this large segment pp. 259-262. “Joyous pluralism” will be treated further in
Chapter Nine
.

42
    Bill D. and the sense of “being different” as “denial” have been explored above,
cf
. pp. 38, 59-60; on Wilson’s attitude to how his own sense of “being different” was related to his alcoholism,
cf
. in
Chapter One
, p. 18, and especially note #36 to that quotation.

43
    The literature here is immense: to cite only the most telling of the sociological (the psychiatric and psychological, as extensive, will be treated in
Chapter Nine
):

R. F. Bales, “The Therapeutic Role of Alcoholics Anonymous as seen by a Sociologist,”
QJSA
5: 267-278 (1944):

M. A. Maxwell, “Interpersonal Factors in the Genesis and Treatment of Alcohol Addiction,”
Social Forces
29: 443-448 (1951);

R. L. Hoggson,
Alcoholics Anonymous: A Study in Solidarity
, unpublished dissertation, sociology, Fordham University, 1952;

William Madsen,
The American Alcoholic
(Springfield, IL: C. C. Thomas, 1974); ch. 9, “A.A.: Birds of a Feather,” pp. 154-197, explores much of the literature on “community” in relation to A.A. —
cf
. especially pp. 167 ff.

44
    The quotation is directly from Anne C., interview of 7 September 1977; it was also implicit in the interview of Henrietta Seiberling of 6 April 1977; Wilson marveling over the theme of this paragraph is a constant thread in his correspondence.

45
    These two images recur with striking frequency in the Wilson correspondence; they were confirmed as “favorites” of Wilson by Nell Wing, interview, 16 July 1976, and Lois Wilson, interview, 16 November 1976;

the direct quotations are from Wilson to Stephen S., ? ? 1957, and Wilson to Venn V., 16 June 1952 (italics Wilson’s).

46
    Wilson to Mary M., 24 August 1964; Wilson to Eleanor D., 1 July 1966 (italics Wilson’s).

47
    “Who Is A Member of Alcoholics Anonymous — by Bill,”
AAGV
3:3 (August 1946), 3; Wilson to John G., 9 October 1967 (italics Wilson’s); Wilson, “Fellowship,” p. 468. Lois Wilson, interview of 16 November 1976, opined that Bill might here have been quoting himself. “Tolerance” as a special theme of Dr. Bob Smith, perhaps in self-conscious compensation for the rigidities in his own personality, is well attested to in all the literature, especially “Last Major Talk” and A.A.’s obituary pamphlet on its co-founders: “The Co-Founders of Alcoholics Anonymous” (New York: A.A.W.S., 1972). Anne C., interview of 7 September 1977, identified this expression as “Dr. Bob’s second-favorite saying.” (The first, of course, was “Keep It Simple.”)

Further,
AAGV
34:6 (November 1977), an issue designated “Classic Grapevine,” chose to reproduce as most representative of Dr. Bob his brief article from its July 1944 issue: “On Cultivating Tolerance.”

48
    Wilson to Frank S., 11 March 1963.

NOTES TO PART TWO: THE INTRODUCTION

1
     
Cf
. Richard R. Peabody,
The Common Sense of Drinking
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1931); and Edward A. Strecker and Francis T. Chambers, Jr.,
Alcohol: One Man’s Meat
(New York: Macmillan, 1938). Jim Bishop,
The Glass Crutch
(New York: Doubleday, Doran, 1945), is a biography of William Wynne Wister, a non-A.A. lay therapist whose personal history will make clear some of the unique strengths of A.A. Strecker (a psychiatrist) and Chambers (a non-A.A. lay therapist) will be cited as appropriate in Chapters Eight and Nine. The “acceptability” point will also be well covered by the citations in those chapters. The reference in the preceding paragraph to “passing mention” is to note #53 to
Chapter Four
, p. 343, above.

I have not made the virtually impossible attempt to analyze herein all twentieth-century approaches to the treatment of alcoholism. The insights of those that I have examined, both religious and secular, seem well-presented — as do many of the insights of A.A. — in one short book that is no doubt too often overlooked because of its dated rhetoric: Charles Follen Parker,
Inebriety: Its Source, Prevention, and Cure
(Philadelphia: Union Press, 189 [8?]). Any interested in exploring further the specific uniqueness of Alcoholics Anonymous might well begin by reading this book and investigating the history of the Washingtonians, concerning whom I treat in
Chapter Five
, above, pp. 115-117.

2
     The history narrated in
Part One
as well as the volume and diversity of the correspondence on which it is to a large part based well attests to this point. For treatment and evaluation of the other main expressions of “the ideas that are Alcoholics Anonymous,”
cf
.
Appendix A
, following
Chapter Nine
.

ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS AND AMERICAN CULTURE

1
     The “long form” of A.A.s Third Tradition reads: “Our membership ought to include all who suffer from alcoholism. Hence we may refuse none who wish to recover. Nor ought A.A. membership ever depend upon money or conformity. Any two or three alcoholics gathered together for sobriety may call themselves an A.A. Group, provided that, as a group, they have no other affiliation.”
(AA
, p. 565). For “other problems” and “special groups,” cf. above, pp. 146-150.

2
     The significance of A.A.’s 1955 “Coming of Age” convention is treated above, pp. 131-134. Membership figures are drawn from an A.A. General Service Office document drawn up by Jim H. Their derivation and validity are discussed by Leach and Norris, “Factors,” in Kissin and Begleiter, pp. 443-449; in
AACA
, pp. ix and 31, the 1957 membership was put at 200,000, following a substantially justified practice of adjusting individual group listings.

On A.A.’s international diffusion, beyond Leach and Norris,
op. cit.
, pp. 449-451, cf.
AACA
pp. 26-31, 83-86.

3
     The generalizations in the paragraphs that follow may be checked in two kinds of sources: retrospectives and text-books. Of the former, I have used especially the appropriate volumes of
This Fabulous Century
, by the editors of TIME-LIFE books (New York: Time, Inc., 1969); of the latter, especially Oscar Handlin,
The History of the United States
(New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1968), vol. II, p. 354-591, hereinafter cited “Handlin,
HUS.”
The responsibility for interpretations, however, is my own.

4
     
Cf
. Frederick Lewis Allen,
Only Yesterday
(New York: Harper & Row, 1931), especially Chapters 12 and 13; Broadus Mitchell,
Depression Decade
(New York: Harper & Row, 1947), pp. 3-49; John Kenneth Galbraith,
The Great Crash
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1955), Chapters 8 and 9; Caroline Bird,
The Invisible Scar
(New York: McKay, 1965); also, for flavor, the selections in Louis Filler (ed.),
The Anxious Years
(New York: Capricorn, 1964); Daniel Aaron and Robert Bendiner (eds.),
The Strenuous Decade
(New York: Doubleday-Anchor, 1970); for the final phrase,
cf
. William Appleman Williams,
The Tragedy of American Diplomacy
(New York: Delta, 1961), especially
Chapter 4
, “The Legend of Isolationism.”

Wilson’s sense of a parallel between his alcoholic “high” and the “high” of the twenties is reflected in
AACA
, p. 55; it is much more clear in Wilson, tr., and Thomsen, pp. 148-165, captures this well.

5
     
Cf
. Handlin,
HUS
, pp. 456-563.

6
     
Cf
. Eric F. Goldman,
The Crucial Decade
—
And After
(New York: Random House-Vintage, 1960), rev. ed.; Daniel Bell,
The End of Ideology
(New York: Free Press, 1962); Will Herberg,
Protestant-Catholic-Jew
(New York: Doubleday-Anchor, 1960), rev. ed.

7
     Although the emphasis here on “limits” is my own, for a good sense of the Korean War Years,
cf:
Handlin,
HUS
, pp. 565-576; Samuel Eliot Morison, Frederick Merk, Frank Freidel,
Dissent in Three American Wars
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 1970).
Cf
. also Handlin,
HUS
, pp. 577-591.

8
     For the role of Jung,
cf
. above, pp. 8-9 and 34-35, with citations.

9
     For Buchman and the Oxford Group,
cf
. above, pp. 48-50, with citations; for Moody,
cf
. William G. McLoughlin, Jr.,
Modern Revivalism
(New York: Ronald Press, 1959), pp. 166-281; for Mencken,
cf
. William Manchester,
H. L. Mencken: Disturber of the Peace
(New York: Collier, 1962), especially
Chapter 6
, “The Infidel Scopes.”

10
    For the role of William James,
cf
. above, pp. 23-24, and 34-35, with citations.

11
    For John D. Rockefeller, Jr.,
cf
. above, pp. 65-66, and 92-94, for the
Saturday Evening Post
and Jack Alexander, above, pp. 100-101, “Philip Wylie Jabs a Little Needle Into Complacency,”
AAGV
1:4 (September 1944), 1; “Bill’s Comments on Wylie Ideas, Hunches,”
ibid.;
Paul deKruif, “God Is Not Yourself,”
AAGV
8:2 July 1951), 3-11.

12
    The literature on “America” is immense; perhaps especially applicable here are: Louis Hartz,
The Liberal Tradition in America
(New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1955) and
The Founding of New Societies
(New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1964); also Seymour Martin Lipset,
The First New Nation
(New York: Basic Books, 1963); Yehoshua Arieli,
Individualism and Nationalism in American Ideology
(Baltimore: Penguin, 1966); on America as “modern,”
cf
. first C. E. Black,
The Dynamics of Modernization
(New York: Harper & Row, 1967).

13
    
Cf
. Lipset and Black,
op. cits.;
Henry F. May,
The Enlightenment in America
(New York: Oxford, 1976); Garry Wills,
Inventing America
(New York: Doubleday, 1978); Scavan Bercovitch,
The Puritan Origins of the American Self
(New Haven: Yale, 1975), ch. 5, “The Myth of America;” Allen Wheelis,
The End of the Modern Age
(New York: Basic Books, 1971); Adrienne Koch,
Power, Morals, and the Founding Fathers
(Ithaca: Cornell, 1961), ch. 2, “The Idea of America;” Crane Brinton,
The Shaping of Modern Thought
(Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1963); Peter Gay,
The Enlightenment: An Interpretation
, vol. 2 (New York: Knopf, 1969); E. A. Burtt,
The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science
(New York: Doubleday-Anchor, 1954), rev. ed.; Carl Becker,
The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-Century Philosophers
(New Haven: Yale, 1932).

The date 1609 refers to Galileo’s first telescope:
cf
. Herbert Butterfield,
The Origins of Modem Science
(New York: Free Press, 1965), p. 78.

14
    
Cf
. from the preceding note May, Brinton, Gay, Becker; also Ernst Cassirer,
The Philosophy of the Enlightenment
, tr. F.C.A. Koelln and J. P. Pettegrove (Boston: Beacon, 1955); Reuben Abel,
Man is the Measure
(New York: Free Press, 1976; Beryl Harold Levy, “From Protagoras to Abel: The Humanist Tradition,"
The Humanist
36:5 (September-October 1976), 48; Raymond C. Cochrane, "Francis Bacon and the Architect of Fortune,” in
Studies in the Renaissance
5: 176-195 (1958); Norman Suckling, “The Enlightenment and the Idea of Progress,” in
Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century
(ed., Theodore Besterman), 58: 1461-1480 (1967); Arthur M. Wilson, “The
Philosophes
in the light of present-day theories of Modernization,” in
eodem
, 1893-1913; Carl Becker, “The Dilemma of Diderot,” in
Everyman His Own Historian
(Chicago; Quadrangle, 1966), pp. 262-283; Carol Blum,
Diderot: The Virtue of a Philosopher
(New York: Viking, 1974); Richard Sennett,
The Fall of Public Man
(New York: Knopf, 1977); Michel Foucault,
Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason
(New York: Pantheon-Random House, 1965); and especially Immanuel Kant, “An Answer to the Question: ‘What is Enlightenment?’” in Hans Reiss (ed.) and H. B. Nisbet (trans.),
Kant’s Political Writings
(Cambridge: The University Press, 1970), pp. 54-60, and “What Does It Mean: To Orientate Oneself in Thinking?” in
eodem
, pp. 168-170.