Throwback Thursday AA history post - The six articles published in the Cleveland Plain Dealer in late 1939 led to tremendous growth in Cleveland's AA Group #3, but also got Clarence kicked out:

That fall Clarence smuggled freelance reporter Elrick Davis into meetings of that first Greater Cleveland group and Mr. Davis wrote a series of articles on A.A. which were published in the Cleveland Plain Dealer. This resulted in over 500 calls for help to be tended by the only 13 active members...

Many members were upset by this workload and by the surreptitious manner in which it was done. So they voted Clarence out of A.A. (which was something that could be done at the time).  

(aa.cle.org)

Reprinted from the October 23, 1939, Cleveland Plain Dealer with permission. [6th of 6 articles]

A NOTED DIVINE REVIEWS “ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS”
by ELRICK B. DAVIS
November 2, 1939 Cleveland Plain Dealer

In a recent series, Mr. Davis told of Alcoholics Anonymous, an organization of former drinkers banded together to beat the liquor habit. This is the first of two final articles on the subject.

The Book
When 100 members of Alcoholics Anonymous, the extraordinary fellowship of men and women who have cured themselves of “incurable” alcoholism by curing each other and adopting a “spiritual way of life,” had established their cures to the satisfaction of their physicians, families, employers and psychotherapists, they published a book.

It is a 400-page volume of which half is a history of the movement and a description of its methods, and the other half a collection of 30 case histories designed to show what a wide variety of persons the fellowship has cured. It is called “Alcoholics Anonymous,” and may be bought for $3.50 from the Works Publishing Co., Box 657, Church Street Annex Postoffice, New York.

The name of the publisher is that adopted by Alcoholics Anonymous for its only publishing venture. The address is “blind” because the name “Alcoholics Anonymous” means exactly what it says. The price of the book is “cost,” 50 cents a volume less than one of the country’s soundest old-line book publishers would have charged if the fellowship had accepted that house’s offer to publish the book and pay the society 40 cents a copy royalty on sales.

Among the first reviews of the book to see print was that written by the Rev. Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick for the Religious Digest. That review so attracted at least one well-known Cleveland minister that he obtained a copy of the book, got in touch with the Cleveland chapter of the society, and plans to preach a sermon about the movement.

Dr. Fosdick is himself the author of seventeen books. His review of “Alcoholics Anonymous” follows:

“This extraordinary book deserves the careful attention of anyone interested in the problem of alcoholism. Whether as victims, friends of victims, physicians, clergymen, psychiatrists or social workers there are many such, and this book will give them, as no other treatise known to this reviewer will, an inside view of the problem which the alcoholic faces. Gothic cathedral windows are not the sole things which can be truly seen only from within. Alcoholism is another. All outside views are clouded and unsure. Only one who has been a alcoholic and has escaped the thraldom can interpret the experience.

Truth
“This book represents the pooled experience of 100 men and women who have been victims of alcoholism-and who have won their freedom and recovered their sanity and self-control. their stories are detailed and circumstantial, packed with human interest. In America today the disease of alcoholism is increasing. Liquor has been an easy escape from depression. As an English officer in India, reproved for his excessive drinking, lifted his glass and said, “This is the swiftest road out of India,” so many Americans have been using hard liquor as a means of flight from their troubles until to their dismay they discover that, free to begin, they are not free to stop. One hundred men and women, in this volume, report their experience of enslavement and then of liberation.

“The book is not in the least sensational. It is notable for its sanity, restraint and freedom from over-emphasis and fanaticism.

“The group sponsoring this book began with two or three ex-alcoholics, who discovered one another through kindred experience. From this a movement started; ex-alcoholics working for alcoholics, without fanfare or advertisement, and the movement has spread from one city to another.

“The core of their whole procedure is religious. They are convinced that for the helpless alcoholic there is only one way out-the expulsion of his obsession by a Power Greater Than Himself. Let it be said at once that there is nothing partisan or sectarian about this religious experience. Agnostics and atheists, along with Catholics, Jews and Protestants, tell their story of discovering the Power Greater Than themselves. ‘Who are you to say that there is no God,’ one atheist in the group heard a voice say when, hospitalized for alcoholism, he faced the utter hopelessness of his condition. Nowhere is the tolerance and open-mindedness of the book more evident than in its treatment of this central matter on which the cure of all these men and women has depended. They are not partisans of any particular form of organized religion, although they strongly recommend that some religious fellowship be found by their participants. By religion they mean an experience which they personally know and which has saved them from their slavery, when psychiatry and medicine had failed. They agree that each man must have his own way of conceiving God, but of God Himself they are utterly sure, and their stories of victory in consequence are a notable addition to William James’ ‘Varieties of Religious Experience.'”

A PHYSICIAN LOOKS UPON ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS
by ELRICK B. DAVIS
November 4, 1939 Cleveland Plain Dealer

Dr. Silkworth
The first appraisal in a scientific journal of Alcoholics Anonymous, former drunkards who cure themselves by curing each other with the help of religious experience, was published in the July issue of the journal Lancet. It was “A New Approach to Psychotherapy [in] Chronic Alcoholism.: by W. D. Silkworth, M.D. physician in charge, Chas B. Town’s Hospital, New York City. A drunkard during a moment of [deep] depression had the spontaneous “religious experience” which started his cure. This was the seed from which came Alcoholics Anonymous. Dr. silkworth was at first skeptical. He is no longer. Excerpts from his paper follow:

“The beginning and subsequent development of a new approach to the problem of permanent recovery for the chronic alcoholic has already produced remarkable results and promises much for the future. This statement is based upon four years of close observation. the principal answer is: Each ex-alcoholic has had and is able to maintain, a vital spiritual or ‘religious’ experience, accompanied by marked changes of personality. There is a radical change in outlook, attitude and habits of thought. In nearly all cases, these are evident within a few months, often less.

“The conscious search of these ex-alcoholics for the right answer has enabled them to find an approach effectual in something more than half of all cases. This is truly remarkable when it is remembered that most of them were undoubtedly beyond the reach of other remedial measures.

Religion
“Considering the presence of the religious factor, one might expect to find unhealthy emotionalism and prejudice. On the contrary, there is an instant readiness to discard old methods for new which produce better results. It was early found that usually the weakest approach to an alcoholic is directly through his family or friends, especially if the patient is drinking heavily. Ex-alcoholics frequently insist a physician take the patient in hand, placing him in a hospital when possible. If proper hospitalization and medical care is not carried out, this patient faces the danger of delirium tremens, ‘wet brain’ or other complications. After a few days’ stay, the physician brings up the question of permanent sobriety. If the patient is interested, he tactfully introduces a member of the group. By this time the prospect has self-control, can think straight, and the approach can be made casually. More than half the fellowship have been so treated. The group is unanimous in its belief that hospitalization is desirable, even imperative, in most cases…

“An effort is made for frank discussion with the patient, leading to self-understanding. He must make the necessary readjustment to his environment. Co-operation and confidence must be secured. The objectives are to bring about extraversion and provide someone to whom he can transfer his dilemma. This group is now attaining this because of the following reasons:

1. Because of their alcoholic experiences and successful recoveries they secure a high degree of confidence from their prospects.
   
2. Because of this initial confidence, identical experiences, and the fact that the discussion is pitched on moral and religious grounds, the patient tells his story and makes his self-appraisal with extreme thoroughness and honesty. He stops living alone and finds himself within reach of a fellowship with whom he can discuss his problems as they arise.
   
3. Because of the ex-alcoholic brotherhood, the patient too, is able to save other alcoholics from destruction. At one and the same time, the patient acquires an ideal, a hobby, a strenuous avocation, and a social life which he enjoys among other ex-alcoholics and their families. These factors make powerfully for his extraversion.
   
4. Because of objects aplenty in whom he can vest his confidence, the patient can turn to the individuals to whom he first gave his confidence, the ex-alcoholic group as a whole, or to the Deity.

(Source: The Cleveland Plain Dealer October – November 1939)