Alcoholics Anonymous is an organization of voluntary which was created in 1935 to help alcoholics to practice to get sobriety. It’s the Mr. Bill Wilson’s idea; a onetime financier that is career in Finance was devastated by alcoholism.

Whilst attending a hospital, suffering from the effects of acute alcohol poisoning, Bill Wilson underwent what he called a spiritual experience, and in his new found acceptance and belief in God, was able to cure himself.

Once leaving the hospital, he worked together with Dr. Bob Smith, and they performed their cooperative job to help and heal alcoholics. The project was very successful and in 1939, Bill Wilson created a book called Alcoholics Anonymous which launched the organization we know today.

At the moment there are more than 106,000 Alcoholics Anonymous meeting groups and the organization has spread around the world. The requirements for joining Alcoholics Anonymous are that only have to be an alcoholic who wants to stop. There is no payment or fee thus the foundation receives its funding from private donations.

The alcoholism treatment concept as a disease was the result of Dr. William Silkworth’s idea, the doctor who has treated Bob Wilson in New York hospital, where here his spiritual experience that put him on the way of creation of Alcoholics Anonymous.

As alcoholic anonymous grew during the late 1930s and early 1940s, and today the 12 basic principles were grown that are the backbone of the organization. The first 12 principles were:

• Admitting alcoholism ruled their lives
• Believing God could cure alcoholism
• Putting themselves in hands of God
• Honest self evaluation
• Self-confession of wrongs performed
• Preparedness for God to get rid of the bad characteristics
• Requesting that God remove these bad characteristics
• Listing the people they had harmed and committing to redress wrongs done
• In fact, making any possible change
• Continuous self evaluation and admission of any continuing faults
• Promising to try to recognize God and the plans to recover alcoholics
• Committing to help other practicing alcoholics

It is clear from these original mission statements or principles that Alcoholics Anonymous had a basic grounding in the belief of God; but as the fellowship has grown, over the passage of a number of years, these principles have become more generalized in order not to alienate, or make themselves untenable to alcoholics who desperately needed and wanted help but saw religion as a barrier to acquiring that help.