Bill
Wilson, a stockbroker and a drunk from Brooklyn, N.Y., thought he had
found the secret of kicking the bottle. But on a business trip to Akron,
Ohio, in May he found himself outside a bar, tempted and desperate. In
the past, he had fought the urge by talking to other alcoholics, who
truly understood his struggle. Through a church group, he found local
surgeon Robert Holbrook Smith.
Dr. Bob and Bill W., as Alcoholics
Anonymous members know them, promised to keep each other sober,
following Bill W.'s strategy: a simple set of principles—later
refined into 12 steps—that would become the foundation of America's
self-help culture. Alcoholics, he said, must admit they are powerless
over their addiction. They must make amends to all those they have
harmed. And they must submit to God—however they define the
deity.
The advice did not immediately take. Dr. Bob went to Atlantic
City, N.J., for a convention; several days later, he showed up at the
Akron train station, smashed. On June 10, the dried-out but still
jittery doctor was due in surgery. That morning, Bill W. gave Dr. Bob a
bottle of beer—to steady his scalpel hand. The operation was a
success. The beer was Dr. Bob's last. And the two men pledged that day
to work to bring Bill W.'s principles to other alcoholics, one day at a
time.
TIME Cover
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