 | |
| Type | Private non-profit |
|---|---|
| Industry | Rehabilitation |
| Founded | 1939 |
| Headquarters | Kent, Connecticut, United States |
Key people | Bill Wilson Marty Mann |
Number of employees | 90+ |
| Website | highwatchrecovery |
High Watch Recovery Center is an alcohol and drug addiction recovery center located in Kent, Connecticut. It was the first recovery center in the World founded on the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA).
High Watch Recovery Center is a seventy-eight-bed treatment center which began in 1939 as High Watch Farm. It is the oldest such facility based on the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, inspired but not founded by Bill Wilson, the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. [1] [2]
The farm was previously called Joy Farm since 1926 and had been the site of a residential community of spiritual seekers. These seekers were followers of a teacher named Emma Curtis Hopkins who was renowned in her time and boasted a following of 50,000 students. Hopkins, known as "The Teacher of Teachers," was one of the major founders of the New Thought movement that today still informs such major churches as Unity Church. [3]
In 1939 the farm was bought and was operated by a philanthropist and heiress from the Winthrop and Stuyvesant families, Etheldred F. Folsom, who was a devotee of Hopkins. She continued to utilize the farm as a spiritual retreat center where she disseminated Hopkins' teachings under "The Ministry of the High Watch". [4] Folsom preferred to be known as Sister Francis in the manner of the Quakers and in honor of her favorite saint, Saint Francis of Assisi. High Watch Recovery Center was founded that year when Folsom met Marty Mann and Bill Wilson, who had recently founded Alcoholics Anonymous.
Marty Mann, Bill Wilson, his wife Lois, and other friends drove to Kent, Connecticut, to meet Sister Francis at Joy Farm in the fall of 1939. It was a historic weekend, ending in Sister Francis asking Bill W. to take over the farm because she felt his program aligned with her beliefs and he could find more success with alcoholics than she had. [4]
Mann later said of her first encounter with High Watch Farm, "There was something there, something that was really palpable that you could feel, and every one of us felt it. To say that we fell in love with it is not to use the right terminology at all. We were engulfed... What is at the Farm was at the Farm before we ever found it. It found us, in my opinion." [5]
Marty Mann was an early ally of Bill W.’s in founding AA, often thought of as the third co-founder. The earliest and most significant friend of High Watch Farm, she had her own cabin there, and for a year her mother ran the Farm. Her speech at the 25th Anniversary of High Watch is notable for her description of the historic meeting of Bill W. and Sister Francis. A celebrated speaker, Mann was Bill W.’s chosen replacement on the speaker’s platform when he was too ill to appear. [6]
In later years, Ebby Thacher, the man Bill Wilson would refer to as "my sponsor", would be a guest at High Watch. [7]
The High Watch board, with its new AA members, were startled awake in July, 1941, when Sister Francis, board president, declared herself physically incapable of setting foot on her own land and Marty Mann abruptly resigned her secretary position on the board. "The vision is lost," Sister Francis mourned.[ citation needed ]
It turned out that a psychologist, a recovering alcoholic, had been put in place as director of the new High Watch Farm. Though he agreed to operate "in full collaboration with AA," he later decided that only what he alone had to offer would work.
Alerted by Marty and Sister Francis, Bill W. wrote to the director about this "impasse" in a strong, mediating letter. Not long after, the director resigned peacefully, and Sister Francis, Marty Mann and Alcoholics Anonymous returned to High Watch Farm. [8]
AA is constantly evaluated by scholars and historians, who consider this historic 1941 fight for the return of Alcoholics Anonymous to High Watch Farm to be one of the major "tests" that foreshadowed AA's future success. This marks High Watch's status as a landmark site in the history of AA. [9]
High Watch is listed in the compendium of "Places and Things in AA History". [10]
The High Watch program of addiction recovery addresses the neurobiology of addiction and co-occurring disorders (such as depression, anxiety or bi-polar disorder) and residents receive individual bio-psycho-social evaluation. Once identified, biological interventions to repair brain neural and neurotransmitter systems damaged by addiction are integrated into the individual's Twelve Step recovery program.
A new facility was opened in October 2012 with Lt. Governor Nancy Wyman and then-Board member Susan St. James in attendance to cut the ribbon. [11]
In November 2016, High Watch opened a new facility called the Treatment Living Center. The building houses thirty-eight guests and, according to High Watch, "allows High Watch to offer a more advanced, wide range of care." [12]
High Watch was included in Psychology Today's 2012 "Best Treatment Guide: The Referral Guide for Professionals." [11]
Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is a global peer-led mutual aid fellowship begun in the U.S. and dedicated to abstinence-based recovery from alcoholism through their spiritually inclined twelve-step program. Besides stressing anonymity and offering membership to anyone wishing to stop drinking, AA's twelve traditions establish it as free to all, non-professional, non-denominational, apolitical and unaffiliated. In 2020 AA estimated its worldwide membership to be over two million with 75% of those in the U.S. and Canada.
Twelve-step programs are international mutual aid programs supporting recovery from substance addictions, behavioral addictions and compulsions. Developed in the 1930s, the first twelve-step program, Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), founded by Bill Wilson and Bob Smith, aided its membership to overcome alcoholism. Since that time dozens of other organizations have been derived from AA's approach to address problems as varied as drug addiction, compulsive gambling, sex, and overeating. All twelve-step programs utilize a version of AA's suggested twelve steps first published in the 1939 book Alcoholics Anonymous: The Story of How More Than One Hundred Men Have Recovered from Alcoholism.
William Duncan Silkworth was an American medical doctor and specialist in the treatment of alcoholism. He was director of the Charles B. Towns Hospital for Drug and Alcohol Addictions in New York City in the 1930s, during which time William Griffith Wilson, a future co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.), was admitted on three occasions for alcoholism. Dr. Silkworth had a profound influence on Wilson and encouraged him to realize that alcoholism was more than just an issue of moral weakness. He introduced Wilson to the idea that alcoholism had a pathological, disease-like basis.
William Griffith Wilson, also known as Bill Wilson or Bill W., was the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA).
The Twelve Traditions of twelve-step programs provide guidelines for relationships between the twelve-step groups, members, other groups, the global fellowship, and society at large. Questions of finance, public relations, donations, and purpose are addressed in the traditions. They were originally written by Bill Wilson after the founding of the first twelve-step group, Alcoholics Anonymous (AA).
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.
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Higher Power is a term used in Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and other twelve-step programs. The same groups use the phrases "a power greater than ourselves" and "God of our understanding" synonymously. The term is intentionally vague because the program is not tied to a particular religion or spiritual tradition; members may use it to refer to any supreme being or deity, another conception of God, or even non-supernatural things such as the twelve-step program itself.
Edwin Throckmorton Thacher was an old drinking friend and later the sponsor of Alcoholics Anonymous co-founder Bill Wilson. He is credited with introducing Wilson to the initial principles that AA would soon develop, such as "one alcoholic talking to another," and the Jungian thesis which was passed along to Rowland Hazard and, in turn, to Thacher that alcoholics could recover by a "genuine conversion".
Margaret Marty Mann is considered by some to be the first woman with longterm sobriety in Alcoholics Anonymous.
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.
Jerry Moe is a counselor, author, trainer, and public speaker. He is a leader on issues for children living in families impacted by addiction and an advocate that recovery from addiction should include all family members. With a background in sociology, education and counseling, Moe developed a program for kids ages 7 to 12 years old to teach them what addiction is, that they are not responsible for their parents’ illness and to provide them with safe space where they can talk openly with others their age who are going through the same experiences. His program was among the first of its kind and is nationally recognized and emulated by mental health professionals, treatment centers and organizations. He is world-renowned for his work with young children struggling with familial addiction and serves on the advisory board for the National Association of Children of Addiction (NaCOA).
Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is a global fellowship founded in 1935 by Bill Wilson and Robert Smith, and has since grown to be worldwide
Charles Barnes Towns (1862–1947) conducted experimentation with cures for alcoholism and drug addiction, and helped draft drug control legislation in the United States during the early 20th century.
Harry M. Tiebout was an American psychiatrist who promoted the Alcoholics Anonymous approach to the public, patients and fellow professionals. He served on the Board of Trustees of Alcoholics Anonymous from 1957 to 1966 and was president of the National Council on Alcoholism from 1951 to 1953.
Alcoholics Anonymous: The Story of How More Than One Hundred Men Have Recovered from Alcoholism is a 1939 basic text, describing how to seek recovery from alcoholism. Written by William G. "Bill W." Wilson, one of the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous, and many of the first 100 members of the group, the composition process was collaborative, with drafts of the book being sent back and forth between Bill W.'s group in New York and Robert Holbrook Smith, the other AA founder, in Akron, Ohio. 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."
Richard Rogers Peabody was an American psychotherapist who specialized in alcoholism.
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