Space pauses and resumes. The arrow keys step through captions. M turns the narration on or off. Click the picture to pause.
Want it on a TV, or to share it? Watch on YouTube
Something wrong in the film? Let me know
Chapters
Who, What, When and Where
The people, the words, the dates and the places in the deep dives, each gathered on a page of its own.
- The people Who’s who Who each one was, from Bill W. and Dr. Bob to the doctors, ministers and writers around them. See everyone
- The words What’s what What each word means, from the Big Book to the GSR, and the part that tells where it came from. See the words
- The timeline What happened when Every dated moment the deep dives tell, in order, from 1840 to today. See the timeline
- The map Where it happened Every place the deep dives are set, on one map, with close-ups of New York, Vermont and Akron. See the map
The people
The people at the start of AA, each told in seven illustrated parts and a Legacy, with narration.
-
Bill W. · 1895–1971
Number One Man
A boy who had to be Number One, a Wall Street drunk, and a co-founder of AA who spent his sober years learning to step aside.
Meet Bill
-
Dr. Bob S. · 1879–1950
I Just Work Here
Dr. Bob S. drank in secret for seventeen years, had his last drink weeks after meeting Bill W., and cared for thousands of alcoholics beside Sister Ignatia.
Meet Dr. Bob
-
Lois W. · 1891–1988
Captain of My Soul
A doctor’s daughter who spent seventeen years trying to love her husband sober, found she needed the program too, and helped start a fellowship for families like hers.
Meet Lois
-
Anne S. · 1881–1949
Call Me Anne
A shy schoolteacher who married a drinking doctor, opened her house to the drunks he brought home, and looked after their frightened wives.
Meet Anne
-
Ebby T. · 1896–1966
My Sponsor, Ebby
A mayor’s brother, a charming drunk, and the old school friend who sat across the kitchen table from Bill W.
Meet Ebby
-
Rowland H. · 1881–1945
Court of Last Resort
A mill family’s eldest son who went to Carl Jung for a cure, found the Oxford Group instead, and stood up for Ebby T. in a Vermont court.
Meet Rowland
-
Dr. Silkworth · 1873–1951
The Little Doctor
Dr. William D. Silkworth told Bill W. his drinking was an illness, stood by him the night it ended, and wrote the letter that opens the Big Book.
Meet Dr. Silkworth
-
Sister Ignatia · 1889–1966
Your Size in Pajamas
A farm girl from County Mayo, a Cleveland music teacher, a nun at a hospital admitting desk, and a friend to thousands of drunks.
Meet Sister Ignatia
-
Father Ed · 1898–1960
Some Bum from St. Louis
A catcher, a newsman and a Jesuit with a cane, who climbed the stairs of AA’s clubhouse one night in 1940 and became Bill W.’s spiritual sponsor.
Meet Father Ed
-
Marty M. · 1904–1980
People Like You
A Chicago debutante who drank her way to the Bowery, then spent the rest of her life telling America that people like her were sick, not bad.
Meet Marty
Topics
The things you meet in AA today, traced back to where they came from.
-
The meeting
Keep Coming Back
The things a newcomer meets in an hour of AA, from the Serenity Prayer to the closing, and where each one came from.
Walk through a meeting
-
The Big Book
By the Carload
How a few dozen sober drunks wrote, paid for and very nearly failed to sell the book that gave AA its name.
Walk through the making of the book
-
The Twelve Traditions
Rule 62
Twelve short principles that hold AA’s groups together, and the troubles in the groups that taught each one.
Walk through the Traditions
-
Far from a meeting
Jittery and Alone
How AA reached the alcoholic who couldn’t get to a meeting, from a book in the mail in 1938 to meetings on a screen in 2020.
Walk from the mailbox to the screen
-
The Steps after the book
Suggestions Only
AA’s Twelve Steps have barely changed a word since 1939, but the ways members read, taught, printed, borrowed and argued over them never stopped changing.
Walk through the years after the book
-
Getting a sponsor
You Had to Be Sponsored
From before the job had a name to AA’s own pamphlet today: how one drunk came to take responsibility for the next.
Walk through sponsorship
-
Groups of their own
The Only Requirement
How alcoholics unlike AA’s founders found the door partly shut, and often started groups of their own.
Walk through who came in
-
The Oxford Group
What Not to Do
The Christian movement that sobered up Ebby T., brought Bill W. and Dr. Bob together, and showed AA what to do, and what not to do.
Walk through the Group’s story
-
Who runs AA
Trusted Servants
AA has no one in charge, yet someone answers its mail, pays its bills and decides what goes in its books, and this is how that came about, one piece at a time.
Walk through AA’s service structure
-
How the world heard
A Bunch of Actors
Reporters, broadcasters and filmmakers carried AA’s story to the world, and AA learned to tell it without a name or a face.
Walk through how the world heard
-
Is it a disease?
An Illness of This Sort
For two hundred years doctors, judges, scientists and AA’s own members have argued over one word, and they still do.
Walk through the argument
-
A spiritual awakening
The Educational Variety
AA’s Twelfth Step speaks of a spiritual awakening, and since 1939 members have been working out what one is, and whether it comes in a moment or slowly.
Walk through the idea
-
The family’s side
A Family Disease
Al-Anon’s story, told from the side of the families: how the wives at AA’s first meetings came to want a program of their own, and what they built with it.
Walk through the families’ story
About this film
An independent history, built from Alcoholics Anonymous's published histories and archives, newspaper accounts, and the work of AA historians. It is not produced, approved or endorsed by Alcoholics Anonymous World Services.
Following AA custom, members are named by first name and last initial. Nonalcoholic friends of the fellowship are named in full. The pictures are illustrations of places and objects, not archival images. Quotations are kept short, and words that appear without quotation marks are paraphrased.
Dates follow AA's own accounts. Where historians disagree, as with the exact day of Dr. Bob's last drink, the film says so.
Sources and notesMembership over time, and the film’s sources
Membership over time
| When | Members (estimated) | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Summer 1935 | 3 | Bill W., Dr. Bob, Bill D. |
| Late 1937 | about 40 | The founders' own count |
| Spring 1939 | about 100 | Big Book foreword |
| End of 1939 | about 800 | Foreword to the second edition |
| March 1941 | about 2,000 | Foreword to the second edition |
| End of 1941 | about 8,000 | Foreword to the second edition |
| 1950 | about 100,000 | AA General Service Office |
| 1955 | over 150,000 | Foreword to the second edition |
| Today | over 2 million | AA General Service Office |
Sources
- The Start and Growth of A.A. · aa.org
- A.A. Timeline · aa.org
- Foreword to the Second Edition, Alcoholics Anonymous · aa.org
- A.A. Around the World · aa.org
- Sister Ignatia · aa.org
- Mary C. Darrah, Sister Ignatia: Angel of Alcoholics Anonymous, on the Sacred Heart badge · Loyola University Press, 1992
- Box 4-5-9, January 1971: Bill W. memorial issue · aa.org
- Markings, Summer 2010: International Conventions · GSO Archives
- The History of Bill Wilson · Stepping Stones Foundation
- History of A.A. in Cleveland · AA Cleveland
- Fifth Edition of the Big Book Coming in February 2027 · AA Cleveland
- “The 76th General Service Conference: ‘Humility in Action,’” Summer 2026, on the one word in the first 164 pages · Box 4-5-9
- Alcoholics Anonymous Celebrates 85 Years with the 2020 A.A. Online International Convention, on the 40 millionth Big Book · AA press release, June 2020
- The Cornwall Press, invoice No. 85D to Works Publishing for the first printing, April 10, 1939, as transcribed from the copy at AA’s General Service Office in AA History Lovers message 2814, November 2005, in “AA History Lovers 2005” · silkworth.net
- Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age (1957) and Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers (1980), on Sylvia K. · AA World Services
- Jack Alexander, "Alcoholics Anonymous," March 1, 1941 · Saturday Evening Post
- World Service Meetings · silkworth.net
- Henry G. (Hank) Parkhurst, 1895–1954 · AA History Lovers
- Dr. Bob's Last Drink · AA Alabama District 2
- Bill W., Bob Smith, Ebby Thacher, Marty Mann, Twelve Traditions, The Big Book · Wikipedia
- Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12-step programs for alcohol use disorder (2020) · Cochrane