On June 10, 1935, the dried-out but still jittery doctor was due in surgery. That morning, Bill W. gave Dr. Bob a bottle of beer—to steady his scalpel hand. The operation was a success. The beer was Dr. Bob’s last. And the two men pledged that day to work to bring Bill W.’s principles to other alcoholics, one day at a time.
On a business trip to Akron, Ohio, in May 1935, Bill Wilson, a stockbroker and a drunk from Brooklyn, N.Y., found himself outside a bar, tempted and desperate. In the past, he had fought the urge by talking to other alcoholics, who truly understood his struggle. Through a church group, he found local surgeon Robert Holbrook Smith.
Dr. Bob and Bill W., as Alcoholics Anonymous members know them, promised to keep each other sober, following Bill W.’s strategy: a simple set of principles — later refined into 12 steps — that would become the foundation of Alcoholics Anonymous.
The advice did not immediately take. Dr. Bob went to Atlantic City, N.J., for a convention; several days later, he showed up at the Akron train station, smashed. On June 10, the dried-out but still jittery doctor was due in surgery. That morning, Bill W. gave Dr. Bob a bottle of beer—to steady his scalpel hand. The operation was a success. The beer was Dr. Bob’s last. And the two men pledged that day to work to bring Bill W.’s principles to other alcoholics, one day at a time.
— Taken from Time Magazine’s 80 Days That Changed the World: AA Takes Its First Steps
