Page 14 - The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous

THE DOCTORS OPINION

WE OF Alcoholics Anonymous believe that the reader will
be interested in the medical estimate of the plan of
recovery described in this book. Convincing testimony
must surely come from medical men who have had
experience with the sufferings of our members and have
witnessed our return to health. A well-known doctor, chief
physician at a nationally prominent hospital specializing in
alcoholic and drug addiction, gave Alcoholics Anonymous
this letter:

To Whom It May Concern:

I have specialized in the treatment of alcoholism for many
years.

In late 1934 I attended a patient who, though he had been
a competent businessman of good earning capacity, was an
alcoholic of a type I had come to regard as hopeless.

In the course of his third treatment he acquired certain
ideas concerning a possible means of recovery. As part of
his rehabilitation he commenced to present his conceptions
to other alcoholics, impressing upon them that they must
do likewise with still others. This has become the basis of a
rapidly growing fellowship of these men and their families.
This man and over one hundred others appear to have
recovered.

I personally know scores of cases who were of the type with
whom other methods had failed completely.

These facts appear to be of extreme medical importance;
because of the extraordinary possibilities of rapid growth
inherent in this group they may mark a new epoch in the