Read the following passage and indicate the answer to each of the questions. Alcoholics Anonymous Alcoholics Anonymous, or A.A., was founded by two friends who were themselves alcoholics. Bill Wilson was a stockbroker from New York City, and Dr. Robert Smith was a surgeon from Ohio. [1] When the two met in May, 1935, Wilson had already been sober for several months, after years of struggling with his drinking. He shared with Smith three important aspects that he had learned about alcoholism. The ...

Read the following passage and indicate the answer to each of the questions.

Alcoholics Anonymous Alcoholics Anonymous, or A.A., was founded by two friends who were themselves alcoholics. Bill Wilson was a stockbroker from New York City, and Dr. Robert Smith was a surgeon from Ohio. [1] When the two met in May, 1935, Wilson had already been sober for several months, after years of struggling with his drinking. He shared with Smith three important aspects that he had learned about alcoholism. The first was that alcoholism is not a moral weakness, or a lack of willpower. A New York specialist, Dr. William Duncan Silkworth had taught Wilson that it was more like a disease than a sin. Alcoholism, he said, is comparable to allergies, in that it produces abnormal reactions to alcohol that do not afflict non-alcoholics. These include the intense craving for alcohol that makes it so hard for an alcoholic to stop drinking, once he or she has started. Second, alcoholics develop an obsession that leads them to begin drinking again even after long periods of sobriety, even knowing that the powerful cravings would return. These facts explained the enormous rate of relapse among “reformed” alcoholics. [2] The third of Wilson’s discoveries is that recovery is possible through a spiritual transformation. He first learned of this approach through a friend who told him the story of Rowland H. Roland H. was an alcoholic who had undergone treatment with the famous Swiss psychologist Carl Jung. After a prolonged period of therapy that produced no results, Jung told Rowland that his case, like that of most alcoholics, was almost hopeless. Rowland had only one chance: a spiritual conversion experience. According to Jung, virtually every successful alcoholic recovery was due to a spiritual transformation. Heeding Jung’s advice, Rowland became a member of the Oxford Group, a Christian movement that advocated finding God through moral selfexamination, confession of faults, reliance upon God, and helping others. [3] Rowland’s story suggested that such a spiritual conversion could cure an alcoholic of the obsession that kept sending him or her back to drinking. Also, Wilson told Smith he had found that simply talking to other alcoholics about his personal struggle with drinking seemed to be very beneficial. The two men decided together to put these ideas into practice. Smith’s last drinking is thought to have been on June 10, 1935, and that is still considered to be the date of A.A.’s founding. In 1939 they published their book Alcoholics Anonymous, which is still in print and remains a bestseller. [4] There are now more than 100,000 A.A. groups in 150 countries, with a total membership of about two million people.

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