Happy birthday Alcoholics Anonymous!

The fellowship that started in Akron, Ohio, turns 90 on June 10

It all started with a phone call.

And 90 years later, the calls for help haven’t stopped.

Alcoholics Anonymous turns 90 years old on June 10, 2025.

The 12 steps offered in the “Big Book” of Alcoholics Anonymous offer a spiritual solution that has helped countless millions recover from all sorts of addictions, including alcohol, drugs, food, sex and gambling. The steps offer a blueprint for living to build a new way of life founded on honesty, purity, unselfishness and love.

Every Founder’s Day Weekend, thousands of recovering alcoholics descend upon Akron, Ohio, where the fellowship began.

It’s a love story, really.

The fellowship began when one suffering person reached out to end the suffering of another.

Bill Wilson, who hailed from Vermont, tried for years to get sober to no avail. He ended up in Akron where a business deal collapsed and he was on the brink of despair.

I love that it all started in Akron, Ohio. I wrote for the Akron Beacon Journal for 14 years and love the way the town celebrates both its blimps and its place as Mecca for recovering alcoholics.

Last week Goodyear celebrated 100 years of blimps by flying three blimps in a victory lap over the city. This weekend, hundreds of motorcycles will roar through the streets and end up at the gravestone of Dr. Bob where dozens will leave their sobriety coins in gratitude for the man from Akron who saved their lives and their souls.

Before Bill W. met Dr. Bob, alcoholics were doomed. They were called skid row bums and rum hounds. There was no cure and no hope; there were no rehabs and no hospitals that would treat alcoholics with dignity and respect. That all changed when a broke businessman from New York found himself desperate in Akron, Ohio at the Mayflower Hotel and reached for a phone instead of a drink.

Bill stood at the turning point, a bar to his left, a phone to his right. He had taken his last drink on December 11, 1934. He was alone in his desperation until he picked up the phone. He skimmed a church directory and kept making calls until he found a person who could help him find another drunk to help. That was the key to sobriety. It still is. Help another person stay sober. Pass it on.

He ended up being introduced to a local surgeon whose hands were too shaky to trust, whose home faced foreclosure.

Before meeting, both men had tried to find help with the Oxford Group, a fellowship that emphasized universal spiritual values. But before meeting Dr. Bob, no one else had recovered.

Together, Bill W. and Dr. Bob created a fellowship that has saved millions of lives. The bedrock of A. A. are the 12 steps, 12 traditions and “Big Book” that is now in more than 70 different languages.

I believe what happened in Akron was divine intervention, a match made in heaven. What is so powerful is that AA didn’t begin when Bill took his last drink in December. It started when Dr. Bob took his last drink that June. The word “I” was replaced by “We.” It’s the cornerstone of recovery.

The first step of Alcoholics Anonymous is WE. “We admitted we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives have become unmanageable.”

What a great idea. Build a bigger we.

It’s a great message for us all. Who is in your “we” to remind you that you are not alone?

Part of the “we” of A.A. included Sister Mary Ignatia, who helped Dr. Bob detox new patients at St. Thomas Hospital. She’s called the Angel of A.A. Her photo is placed center stage at Founder’s Day.

She taught music until she had “a nervous breakdown.” She couldn’t teach any more so they sent her to register patients at St. Thomas Hospital.

There she went rogue and started helping Dr. Bob detox drunks and give alcoholics back their dignity. Alcoholism wasn’t yet treated as a disease, so she would declare that the man had terrible indigestion and should be admitted right away. If he was super drunk, she had a bed moved into the hospital’s flower room so he couldn’t disturb other patients. In time, she and Dr. Bob convinced the hospital to open an entire ward for alcoholics where they detoxed them.

She gave each patient who left her care a Sacred Heart of Jesus badge. She asked each recipient to return the badge before they drank again. Many believe she inspired the sobriety coins given out on anniversaries to mark the number of years sober.

A.A. has never had a president, a budget or any dues or fees for membership, just a bunch of drunks who want to stay sober and plunk a dollar or two in a basket.

As the third tradition states, “The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking.” Nothing else. The program believes in attraction, not promotion. It accepts no outside money.

Yet here it is, turning 90.

How does it work?

Just fine.

Learn more about AA in this podcast with Gail L., an archivist for Dr. Bob’s Home in Akron, Ohio. She was the Akron A.A. Archivist from 1994 to 2009.