VINTAGE
14 pages, édité par works publishing, inc
1° page :
ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS was conceived by a drunk lying on a bed in a drunks' hospital in New York in 1934, and had a hard birth in Akron, Ohio, the following year. A doctor of medicine was present but at this critical moment was too alcoholically jittery to know an accouchement was taking place. The American tradition of adverse beginnings was thus fulfilled by this organization, which today equally fulfills the tradition of success after struggle. By birthplace, heritage, tradition, habits, looks, and tone of voice Alcoholics Anonymous is unmistakably American. And yet in almost every way it contradicts the stencils by which non-American minds gauge American achievement. It has almost no money and wishes it could do with still less. In fifteen years its membership has grown from nothing to 120,000, yet it never urges anyone to join. Of formal "organization" it has almost none, yet it avers it "ought never to have any." A man or woman becomes a member by simple declaration, and need share his decision with only one other human being. There are no pledges or constraints in A.A.; no records that must be kept or quotas that must be broken. Seniority confers no favors. A.A. has one purpose only: "to help the sick alcoholic recover, if he wishes."
In a world whose spiritual values have dropped close to the vanishing point, the strange society of A.A. places its entire
