Page 6 - The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous

obsession by a sudden spiritual experience, following a
meeting with an alcoholic friend who had been in contact
with the Oxford Groups of that day. He had also been
greatly helped by the late Dr. William D. Silkworth, a New
York specialist in alcoholism who is now accounted no less
than a medical saint by A.A. members, and whose story of
the early days of our Society appears in the next pages.
From this doctor, the broker had learned the grave nature
of alcoholism. Though he could not accept all the tenets of
the Oxford Groups, he was convinced of the need for moral
inventory, confession of personality defects, restitution to
those harmed, helpfulness to others, and the necessity of
belief in and dependence upon God.

Prior to his journey to Akron, the broker had worked hard
with many alcoholics on the theory that only an alcoholic
could help an alcoholic, but he had suc-ceeded only in
keeping sober himself. The broker had gone to Akron on a
business venture which had collapsed, leaving him greatly
in fear that he might start drinking again. He suddenly
realized that in order to save himself he must carry his
message to another alcoholic. That alcoholic turned out to
be the Akron physician.

This physician had repeatedly tried spiritual means to
resolve his alcoholic dilemma but had failed. But when the
broker gave him Dr. Silkworth’s description of alcoholism
and its hopelessness, the physician began to pursue the
spiritual remedy for his malady with a willingness he had
never before been able to muster. He sobered, never to
drink again up to the moment of his death in 1950. This
seemed to prove that one alcoholic could affect another as
no nonalcoholic could. It also indicated that strenuous
work, one alcoholic with another, was vital to permanent
recovery.