Alcoholics Anonymous
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Sharing experiences, strength and hope has long been witnessed to give rise to clans. Though some of them turned out utterly detrimental for the world we live in (e.g. Ku Klux Klan or the Hell’s Angels), the others succeeded in making it a better place by offering a helping hand to the sufferers. One such organization is the Alcoholics Anonymous; comprising of members who had been alcoholics themselves, has now devoted their life to solve the common problems that stay associated with alcoholism along with a vision to help others to recover from alcoholism.
Alcoholics Anonymous has none but only one requirement for the membership: the desire to stop the intake of alcohol. A membership doesn’t cost any money and doesn’t represent any sect, either political or religious. Alcoholics Anonymous is also prone to keep controversies at bay; the primary purpose for the organization is to stay sober and help other alcoholics achieve sobriety. On their quest, they also gave rise to the original twelve-step program or the Minnesota Model of treatment for alcoholism and paved the path for a number of similar associations to come up, a few of them being the Gamblers Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, Sexaholics Anonymous, Overeaters Anonymous, and Al-Anon/Alateen.
Alcoholics Anonymous came up as a remedy for alcoholics who did not have enough provisions to pay money for fighting alcoholism. Started by two alcoholics, William Griffith Wilson and Dr. Robert Holbrook Smith, the organization was the first to carry the agenda of fighting alcoholism and also the one to keep the treated ones away from drinking in the later days. Alcoholics Anonymous also re-defined alcoholism: A progressive disease from which the alcoholic is suffering. They also termed it incurable; the only way an alcoholic may recover is by completely abstaining from alcohol.
Apart from the seven out of twenty-one members of the Alcoholics Anonymous Board of trustees, the rest are former alcoholics. The seven are known as nonalcoholic friends of the fellowship. The reason behind is a firm belief of Alcoholics Anonymous: the relative success of the program owes to the fact that a recovered alcoholic has a special ability to bond and provide insight into the necessity of sobriety to other alcoholics.
The prime force behind Alcoholics Anonymous is the Twelve Traditions; a minimal organized structure, Alcoholics Anonymous has no hierarchy of leaders and no formal control structures are present within the organization. There are certain people who hold the service positions within the Fellowship, and are known as trusted servants. Truly democratic by nature, even the higher authorities in the organization cannot dictate other members or groups, which, irrespective of their sizes, are considered self-supporting and self-governing entities. Neither do they have offices and service centers for coordinating activities. Further intricacies are presented in the Big Book Alcoholics Anonymous and discussed in detail in the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions. Another publication from Alcoholics Anonymous is the AA Grapevine, an international journal written, edited, illustrated and read by A.A. members and others interested in the A.A. program of recovery from the disease of alcoholism.
From its initiation in 1935, the organization (according to the reports of the General Service Office of Alcoholics Anonymous) has given rise to more than 100,000 groups in a total of 150 countries, with the total number of members nearing to two millions. But Traditional Catholicism has described Alcoholics Anonymous as abominably liberal and indifferentist, while, at the same time, they acknowledged of cautiously tolerating the organization to avoid the greater evil of alcoholism. It goes with a small number of ultra-conservative Protestants as well, who expressed discomfort about the New Thought, and held it as being influenced by occult.
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