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In 2017 comedian Eli Yudin wrote on Twitter, “Being an old-timey doctor would rule, just drunk as hell like ‘yeah u got ghosts in your blood, you should do cocaine about it.’” When it comes to the doctor who co-founded Alcoholics Anonymous on June 10, 1935, there are similarities. The organization has an interesting beginning.
--On This Day in History, Shit Went Down: June 10, 1935--
The previous year, Bill Wilson was drunk as fuck. All the time. He tried to quit, to no avail. He staggered into Town’s Hospital for substance abuse in New York City where they sedated him with chloral hydrate and paraldehyde to calm his agitation from detoxing, allowing him to sleep. He was regularly wakened to be administered a cocktail that included tincture of belladonna, a potentially toxic plant that can cause hallucinations.
On the second or third day of detox, Wilson’s former drinking buddy, Ebby Thacher, visited him. Thacher had gotten clean by embracing Christianity and implored Wilson to turn to Jesus. The hallucinations belladonna trigger tend to be based on recent discussions, made fantastical. Wilson called out, “If there be a God, let him show himself!” He saw a blinding light, felt peace, and never drank again.
Enter Bob Smith, the drunk-as-fuck doctor.
Like many people, Bob began drinking in college, and he was one of those assholes who didn’t get hangovers. So he was drunk all the time and still managed to graduate. He then drank his way through med school and barely finished. Afterward, he became an ass surgeon—the kind that solves problems with the poop chute, not the Kardashian implant sort—and continued to drink his fucking face off.
He knew he had a problem, and tried to quit numerous times, even checking himself into hospitals. None of it worked.
But then he met Bill Wilson, who kept his own sobriety up through helping others quit. He was determined to help Smith. The first try didn’t take, but the second began on June 9, when Wilson gave Smith a few drinks to avoid delirium tremens, which is when severe ethanol withdrawal causes you to see snakes and spiders and shit. The next morning Smith drank a single beer to calm his nerves so he could perform an operation. It would be the last drink he ever took and is celebrated as the beginning of AA.
Since then, the organization has helped many get sober. It has also been frequently criticized as unscientific, cult-like, and having a low rate of success.
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As a guy who’s earned a five year chip, I appreciate the simplicity of your account: allowing the facts to stand as they are and acknowledging the movement’s muddle of “success” and “issues.” That muddle is sort of true for us folks who identify as alcoholics, too.