Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is an international mutual aid fellowship dedicated to abstinence based recovery from alcoholism through its spiritually inclined Twelve Step program. Following its Twelve Traditions, AA and autonomous AA groups are self-supporting through the strictly voluntary donations from members only. The Traditions also establish AA as non-professional, non-denominational, and apolitical, with an avowed desire to stop drinking as its sole requirement for membership. Though AA has not endorsed the disease model of alcoholism, to which its program is nonetheless sympathetic, its wider acceptance is partly due to many members independently promulgating it. A recent scientific review shows that by many measures AA does as well or better than other clinical interventions or no treatment. In particular, AA produces better abstinence rates with lower medical costs. As of 2020, having spread to diverse cultures, including geopolitical areas normally resistant to grassroots movements, AA has estimated its worldwide membership to be over two million with 75% of those in the U.S. and Canada.
Robert Holbrook Smith, also known as Dr. Bob, was an American physician and surgeon who founded Alcoholics Anonymous with Bill Wilson.
William Griffith Wilson, also known as Bill Wilson or Bill W., was the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA).
The Richard Nixon Birthplace is the birthplace and early childhood home of Richard Nixon, the 37th president of the United States. It is located on the grounds of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum at 18001 Yorba Linda Boulevard in Yorba Linda, California, and serves as a historic house museum.
Lois Wilson, also known as Lois W., was the co-founder of Al-Anon Family Groups, a 12-Step fellowship for the friends and family of alcoholics. She was the wife of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) co-founder Bill W. They both followed their respective groups' tradition of anonymity until The New York Times revealed their full names upon Bill's death in 1971. However, she continued to be known as Lois W. within Al-Anon until her death.
James Burwell, known as Jim B. or Jimmy B., was one of the Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) founding members. He was among the first ten members of AA on the East Coast, and was responsible for starting Alcoholics Anonymous in Philadelphia and Baltimore. Later in life, he and Rosa, his wife, moved to San Diego, California and were instrumental in the growth of AA there.
Samuel Moor Shoemaker III DD, STD was a priest of the Episcopal Church. Samuel Shoemaker was considered one of the best preachers of his era, whose sermons were syndicated for distribution by tape and radio networks for decades. He founded Faith At Work magazine in 1926. He served as the rector of Calvary Episcopal Church in New York City from 1925 to 1952. He was the head of the United States headquarters of the Oxford Group and later of the Moral Re-Armament which the Oxford Group became in 1938, from circa 1927 till circa 1941. From 1952 to 1962, he served as the rector of Calvary Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania., He retired in 1962 and died the following year. Sam Shoemaker's interdenominational focus and the Oxford Group were significant influences for the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) who met through the Oxford Group. Bill Wilson attended Oxford Group meetings at Calvary Church from late 1934 to circa 1939. Sam Shoemaker had help start an Oxford Group chapter in Akron, Ohio, where Dr. Bob Smith became involved.
Margaret Marty Mann is considered by some to be the first woman with long term sobriety in Alcoholics Anonymous.
Mary Ignatia Gavin, C.S.A., was an Irish-born American Religious Sister, better known as Sister Ignatia, belonging to the Sisters of Charity of St. Augustine, who served as a nurse. In the course of her work she became involved in the care of those suffering from alcoholism, working with Bob Smith, a co-founder of what became Alcoholics Anonymous. In this work she became known as the alcoholic's "Angel of Hope".
The Arthur H. Compton House is a historic house at 5637 South Woodlawn Avenue in Chicago, Illinois. Built in 1905 and designed by architects Holabird & Roche, it was the residence of physicist Arthur Compton (1892–1962) from 1928 until 1945. Compton discovered the Compton Effect in 1923, proving that light has both a particle and a wave aspect. Compton received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1927 for this discovery. His house was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1976.
The Daniel Hale Williams House is the former home of Dr. Daniel Hale Williams (1856-1931), one of the first major African American surgeons. Located at 445 East 42nd Street in the Grand Boulevard community area of Chicago Illinois, the building was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1975.
Stepping Stones is the historic home of Alcoholics Anonymous co-founder Bill Wilson and his wife, co-founder of Al-Anon/Alateen Lois Wilson, in Bedford Hills, New York. The historic site features their house ; Bill W.'s writing studio, nicknamed "Wit's End"; approximately 15,000 objects left by the Wilsons; a water pump house; the original one-car garage; a two-car garage and Welcome Center with an orientation display highlighting some of the 100,000 items in the Stepping Stones Archives; a flower garden; a community vegetable garden; and more. Lois left the property to The Stepping Stones Foundation - the nonprofit, tax-exempt organization that she founded in 1979. Since Mrs. Wilson's death in 1988 the Stepping Stones Foundation has maintained and preserved the site with the help of friends, and has offered on-site tours by reservation and off-site educational programs.
Rowland Hazard III was an American businessman and member of a prominent Rhode Island family involved in the foundation and executive leadership of a number of well-known companies. He is also known as the "Rowland H." who figured in the events leading to the formation of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) was founded in 1935 by Bill Wilson and Robert Smith, and has since grown to be worldwide.
The Joseph Henry House is a historic building located on the campus of Princeton University in Princeton, Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. Joseph Henry, a prominent American physicist who worked in electromagnetics, designed the house in 1836 and lived there from its completion in 1838 until taking a position as the first secretary of the Smithsonian Institution in 1848. The construction of the house was offered to the young physicist as part of the University's attempt to hire him away from the Albany Academy in an attempt to raise Princeton's profile. After Henry's departure, the house served as the official housing of the Dean of the College, the University's senior undergraduate academic officer, from 1909 to 1961.
The George R. Minot House is a National Historic Landmark in Brookline, Massachusetts. It is an architecturally undistinguished vernacular Colonial Revival brick house, probably built in the 1920s. The 2+1⁄2-story main block has an attached 1+1⁄2-story ell, and two end chimneys. The hip roof is pierced by gabled dormers, and a pedimented portico shelters the front entry.
The Benjamin Lundy House is a historic house at Union and Market Streets in Mount Pleasant, Ohio. It was home in 1820 to abolitionist Benjamin Lundy (1789-1839), where he established the influential antislavery newspaper The Genius of Universal Emancipation, one of the first antislavery publications in the United States. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in May 1974, and included in the Mount Pleasant Historic District later the same year.
The Bill Wilson House is a historic 19th-century hotel at 378 Village Street in East Dorset, Vermont, United States. Built in 1852, it is the birthplace and living memorial of Alcoholics Anonymous co-founder Bill Wilson. With 14 guestrooms and a conference room the non-profit bed and breakfast is a center for recovery seminars and regular AA and ALANON meetings. The property was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1995.
Alcoholics Anonymous: The Story of How More Than One Hundred Men Have Recovered from Alcoholism is a 1939 basic text, describing how to recover from alcoholism. Written by William G. "Bill W." Wilson, one of the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and many of the first 100 members of the group, the composition process was collaborative, with drafts of the book sent back and forth between Bill W's group in New York and Dr. Bob, the other founder of A.A., in Akron, OH. It is the predecessor of the seminal "twelve-step method" widely used to treat many addictions, from alcoholism, heroin addiction and marijuana addiction to overeating, sex addiction and gambling addiction, with a strong spiritual and social emphasis. It is one of the best-selling books of all time, having sold 30 million copies. In 2011, Time magazine placed the book on its list of the 100 best and most influential books written in English since 1923, the year in which the magazine was first published. In 2012, the Library of Congress designated it as one of 88 "Books that Shaped America."
Henrietta McBrayer Buckler Seiberling was a member of a Christian Fellowship group named the Oxford group. She and others of the Oxford group helped found Alcoholics Anonymous.
