AA and The Akron Group (First ever AA meeting)

A new program

Wilson and Smith sought to develop a simple program to help even the worst alcoholics, along with a more successful approach that empathized with alcoholics yet convinced them of their hopelessness and powerlessness. They believed active alcoholics were in a state of insanity rather than a state of sin, an idea they developed independently of the Oxford Group.

To produce a spiritual conversion necessary for sobriety and sanity, alcoholics needed to realize that they couldn't conquer alcoholism by themselves—that surrendering to a higher power and working with another alcoholic were required. Sober alcoholics could show drinking alcoholics that it was possible to enjoy life without alcohol, thus inspiring a spiritual conversion that would help ensure sobriety.

The tactic employed by Smith and Wilson to bring about the conversion was first to determine if an individual had a drinking problem. To do this they would first approach the man's wife, and later they would approach the individual directly by going to his home or by inviting him to the Smiths' home. The objective was to get the man to surrender, and the surrender involved a confession of powerlessness and a prayer that said the man believed in a higher power and could be restored to sanity. This process would sometimes take place in the kitchen, or at other times it was at the man's bed with Wilson kneeling on one side of the bed and Smith on the other side. This way the man would be led to admit his defeat. Wilson and Smith believed that until a man had surrendered, he couldn't attend the Oxford meetings. No one was allowed to attend a meeting without being sponsored. Thus a new prospect underwent many visits around the clock with members of the Akron team and undertook many prayer sessions, as well as listening to Dr. Smith cite the medical facts about alcoholism. A new prospect was also put on a special diet of sauerkraut, tomatoes and Karo syrup to reduce his alcoholic cravings. The Smith family home in Akron became a center for alcoholics.

Two realizations came from Wilson's work in Akron. The first was that to remain sober, an alcoholic needed another alcoholic to work with. The second was the concept of the 24 hours—that if the alcoholic could resist the urge to drink by postponing it for one day, one hour, or even one minute, he could remain sober.

An Akron group and a New York group

After he and Smith worked with AA members three and four, Bill Dotson and Ernie G., and an initial Akron group was established, Wilson returned to New York and began hosting meetings in his home in the fall of 1935.

Wilson allowed alcoholics to live in his home for long periods without paying rent and board. This practice of providing a halfway house was started by Dr. Bob Smith and his wife Anne. Wilson's wife, Lois, not only worked at a department store and supported Wilson and his unpaying guests, but she also did all the cooking and cleaning. She also tried to help many of the alcoholics that came to live with them. She was attacked by one man with a kitchen knife after she refused his advances, and another man committed suicide by gassing himself on their premises. Later they found that he had stolen and sold off their best clothes. Wilson stopped the practice in 1936 when he saw that it did little to help alcoholics recover. The Wilsons did not become disillusioned with the Oxford Group until later; they attended the Oxford Group meetings at the Calvary Church on a regular basis and went to a number of the Oxford Group house parties up until 1937.

Separating from the Oxford Group

There were two programs operating at this time, one in Akron and the other in New York. The Akron Oxford Group and the New York Oxford Group had two very different attitudes toward the alcoholics in their midst. The Akron Oxford members welcomed alcoholics into their group and did not use them to attract new members, nor did they urge new members to quit smoking; and Akron's alcoholics did not meet separately from the Oxford Group.

The Wilsons' practice of hosting meetings solely for alcoholics, separate from the general Oxford Group meetings, generated criticism within the New York Oxford Group. Oxford Group members believed the Wilsons' sole focus on alcoholics caused them to ignore what else they could be doing for the Oxford Group. While Sam Shoemaker was on vacation, members of the Oxford Group declared the Wilsons not "Maximum," and members were advised not to attend the Wilsons' meetings. In 1937 the Wilsons broke with the Oxford Group. The Oxford Group saw Wilson as quitting; Lois Wilson said they "were kicked out." Wilson later wrote that he found the Oxford Group aggressive in their evangelism. He objected to the group's publicity-seeking and intolerance of nonbelievers, and those alcoholics who were practicing Catholics found their views to be in conflict with the Oxford teachings. On a personal level, while Wilson was in the Oxford Group he was constantly checked by its members for his smoking and womanizing. The alcoholics within the Akron group did not break away from the Oxford Group there until 1939. Their break was not from a need to be free of the Oxford Group; it was an action taken to show solidarity with their brethren in New York.

At the end of 1937, after the New York separation from the Oxford Group, Wilson returned to Akron, where he and Smith calculated their early success rate to be about 5 percent. Over 40 alcoholics in Akron and New York had remained sober since they began their work. Wilson then made plans to finance and implement his program on a mass scale, which included publishing a book, employing paid missionaries, and opening alcoholic treatment centers. The 18 alcoholic members of the Akron group saw little need for paid employees, missionaries, hospitals or separate literature. Some of what Wilson proposed violated the spiritual principles they were practicing in the Oxford Group. By a one-vote margin, they agreed to Wilson's writing a book, but they refused any financial support of his venture.