Illustration · A hospital corridor in 1935: two hats and a doctor’s bag on the bench outside a door left ajar. Not drawn from a photograph.

New York and Akron · 1934–1939

Working with Others

Before AA had a word for it, one drunk went to the next, sober himself only a few months or a few weeks.

“Practical experience shows that nothing will so much insure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics.”

“Working with Others,” chapter 7 · Alcoholics Anonymous, 1939

Before the word

In November 1934 Ebby T., sober about two months, called on his old friend Bill W. and told him what had happened to him. Bill got sober that December, and for the next six months he worked with drunks at a mission and at Towns Hospital. “I hadn’t sobered up anybody,” he wrote later. But he stayed sober himself.

In May 1935, in Akron, he found Dr. Bob, and in June the two of them went looking for another drunk. Bill D., a lawyer, lay strapped to a bed in City Hospital. His wife told him first what the two men had in mind: “part of that plan was that they tell it to another drunk. This was going to help them to stay sober.” He couldn’t pay them, she added, even if he wanted to. Bill D. walked out of the hospital, in Bill W.’s words, “never to drink again.”

By 1937 Akron had a routine. A newcomer heard from member after member before he was let into a meeting, and Dr. Bob might take him through the six steps himself.

The book they published in April 1939 put the work in a chapter, “Working with Others.” Its newcomer is a prospect, “your man,” “the new man.” Its helper is simply you, and it tells you: “Make it plain he is under no obligation to you.”

Listen Working with Others About 1 minute

Before the word

Four first calls

Who called on whom, how long the caller had been sober, and where the word turns up later.

From the Big Book (stories first printed in 1955), Bill W.’s Grapevine piece of July 1953, and Pass It On (1984). The words “sponsor” and “sponsorship” in these cards were all written down years after the calls.

Bill W.’s writing

Ebby T. to Bill W., November 1934

Sober himself: About two months.
The call: He telephoned, then came to Bill’s kitchen table and told him what had happened to him. Ten cents, in My Sponsor, Ebby
The word, later: By Bill, in the Grapevine in July 1953, looking back to 1935: “My sponsor, Ebbie, still clung precariously to his newfound sobriety.”

AA’s books

Bill W. to Dr. Bob, May 1935

Sober himself: About five months.
The call: Alone in Akron after a failed business deal and wanting a drink, Bill went looking for another alcoholic to talk to, and was sent to Dr. Bob. The gate lodge, in I Just Work Here
The word, later: By Dr. Bob, laughing, to a member in 1950: Bill was his sponsor, he said, and he had got drunk after Bill talked to him. 6 · The sponsor of my sponsor

His own words

Bill W. and Dr. Bob to Bill D., June 1935

Sober themselves: Bill, about six months. Dr. Bob, about two weeks.
The call: They saw his wife first, then came to his hospital room. They talked about their own drinking, asked if he wanted to quit, and asked if he believed in a Higher Power.
The word, later: In AA’s biography of Bill, in 1984. The three of them called on the next man, Ernie G., only 30 and “almost too young” in the eyes of his sponsors.

His own words

Akron to Earl T., 1937

Sober themselves: The first to call, Howard, a doctor who had lost his practice, was “beginning to get his medical practice back again.”
The call: Howard talked with him for two hours the night he arrived from Chicago. Two more men came the next day, then the rest, eight or nine in all, before he was allowed into a meeting. On his last afternoon Dr. Bob took him through the six steps in his office.
The word, later: By Earl, in his story in the Big Book in 1955: “I wish that every A.A. could have the benefit of this type of sponsorship today.”

Sober a few weeks

Each of the first callers had been sober only weeks or months. None of them is known to have called it sponsorship at the time. The word took hold in Cleveland in 1939, and they gave it to these first calls later.

For a closer look

Go deeper

What the 1939 chapter calls the newcomer; whether Akron did it better; and the fourth man.

Every word but one

“Working with Others” has plenty of names for the newcomer: a prospect, “your man,” “the new man,” “your candidate,” “your protégé,” and once, for men just sobering up, “green recruits.” It never calls the man who helps him a sponsor. It speaks to him directly, as you.

It also tells you who gains from the call: “Actually, he may be helping you more than you are helping him.”

The more effective sponsor?

AA’s biography of Bill W., Pass It On, compares the two founders and allows that Akron may have done it better: “There are also some indications that Dr. Bob was the more effective sponsor.” In the first few years AA grew faster in Akron than in New York, and some people credited his leadership.

Bill’s own early efforts were lively. In Brooklyn, he remembered, “we always had a houseful of drinkers living with us, sometimes as many as five.” One evening Lois came home from work to find two of them “whaling each other with two-by-fours.”

For what Akron’s hospital work came to, see 3 · Visiting hours.

Almost too young

The fourth man was Ernie G., and Bill W., Dr. Bob and Bill D. all called on him. At 30, he seemed to them almost too young.

He stayed sober for a year, then drank for seven months. His story in the first edition of the Big Book, in 1939, is called “The Seven Month Slip.” Pass It On says he had trouble with drinking for the rest of his life, and that his early sobriety still played its part in those first years.

The first sponsors drank again too. 6 · The sponsor of my sponsor tells some of their stories.

Sources

Alcoholics Anonymous. Works Publishing, 1939. Chapter 7, “Working with Others,” and Ernie G.’s “The Seven Month Slip.” Fourth edition, AA World Services, 2001: “Alcoholic Anonymous Number Three” (Bill D., with Bill W.’s account) and “He Sold Himself Short” (Earl T.), both first printed in the second edition (1955).
Bill W., The Language of the Heart. AA Grapevine, 1988. “A Fragment of History: Origin of the Twelve Steps,” from the Grapevine of July 1953.
Pass It On. AA World Services, 1984. Chapter 8 (Ernie G.; Dr. Bob as sponsor).
Questions & Answers on Sponsorship (P-15). AA World Services, revised June 2025.