HISTORY OF ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS

  The spark that was to flare into the first A.A. group was struck at Akron, Ohio, in June 1935, during a talk between a New York stockbroker and an Akron physician. Six months earlier, the broker had been relieved of his drink 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.

     Hence the two men set to work almost frantically upon alcoholics arriving in the ward of the Akron City Hospital. Their very first case, a desperate one, recovered immediately and became A.A. number three. He never had another drink. This work at Akron contin-ued through the summer of 1935. There were many failures, but there was an occasional heartening success. When the broker returned to New York in the fall of 1935, the first A.A. group had actually been formed, though no one realized it at the time. -  Reprinted with permission from the Forward to the 2nd Edition of AA Big Book Copyright ©1955 by Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.

The start of AA in North Carolina (Area 51):

     Area 51 is one of 93 areas in the General Service Conference of Alcoholics Anonymous (United States/Canada). Our boundaries coincide with the state of North Carolina.  To facilitate communication and service activities, Area 51 is subdivided by geography and language into 39 districts -- 36 English-speaking and 3 Spanish-speaking.  Currently there are over 900 A.A. groups that meet one or more times weekly in communities across North Carolina. Like all A.A. groups, each is autonomous.

     Through voluntary participation in our general service structure, our groups combine resources to carry A.A.'s message of recovery wherever in the world it is needed and wanted.