Runners looking to pick up their race numbers for this year’s Peachtree Road Race ran into quite the crowd this year at the Georgia World Congress Center. While runners picked up their numbers in Building C, over 60,000 attendees from all over the world, sporting badges emblazoned with “Happy, Joyous, Free”, arrived in Atlanta this past weekend to celebrate the 80th year of Alcoholics Anonymous in Buildings A and B.
In 1935, there had been a Christian fellowship organization called the Oxford Group that Bill Wilson had been involved in but it didn’t offer quite the constant support for which Bill was looking. Wilson soon met a fellow alcoholic, Dr. Bob Smith, at a meeting that was supposed to be limited to 15 minutes. Smith and Wilson however ended up talking for hours. On June 10 of that year, Smith had his last drink with Wilson’s assistance, and thus began Alcoholics Anonymous. Bill and Bob were aiming to found a simple program to help alcoholics acknowledge, understand and recover from their addiction. It wasn’t recognized as an addiction yet, mostly it was thought of a moral failing, but Bill and Bob knew that for the alcoholic, drinking was as powerful as any other addiction. They also knew there was no simple answer. Each of them had tried many different methods but with little success.
Stressing that alcoholics could not conquer the disease by themselves, the two men, commonly known as Bill W. and Dr. Bob to emphasize the importance of anonymity, taught that surrendering to a higher power and working with another alcoholic were required for A.A. Bill also came up with the concept of 24 hours – if an alcoholic could restrain from drinking for one day, he could think of every day as that one day and stay sober.
In 1939, Bill wrote Alcoholics Anonymous: The Story of How Many Thousands of Men and Women Have Recovered from Alcoholism, known by A.A. members as The Big Book, the foundational text of A.A. It was the first book to explain the twelve-step method, now used to treat many addictions. It is one of the best-selling books of all time and was placed by Time magazine on its list of 100 best and most influential books of the last 100 years. In 2012, the Library of Congress designated it as one of 88 “Books that Shaped America.”
By 1950, AA had grown to around 100,000 members and hosted its first International Convention. According to the AA website, since then,
Every five years, thousands of A.A. members are joined by a variety of professionals, supportive community members and friends from around the globe to celebrate sobriety and fellowship, and to rededicate themselves to carrying the message of hope and recovery back home.
Currently, it is estimated there two million people worldwide staying sober through Alcoholics Anonymous. The 2015 convention in Atlanta was expecting attendees from 80 countries. Nearly 800 speakers participated in topic meetings, panels and other meetings. Most meetings were in English, but there were also meetings in Spanish, French, Italian, German, Japanese, Russian, Polish, Lithuanian, Swedish and American Sign Language. There were also meetings for Al-Anon (a separate group for friends and relatives of alcoholics) and Alateen.
Convention planners estimated a $60 million economic impact for Atlanta, considering hotel bookings, restaurant dining (but no bar tabs), sightseeing and travel. Approximately 3,500 local A.A. members also served to help attendees enjoy their visit.
If you wanted to go but missed this year’s convention, 2020 will be in Detroit and Vancouver will host in 2025. For other A.A. information, consult the A.A. website, http://www.aa.org/pages/en_US. There is also a website specifically for metro-Atlanta A.A., http://www.atlantaaa.org/index.php, where you can find meeting times for any of the 14 A.A. meeting locations in the metro area and other information that may be helpful.
