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Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is an international mutual aid fellowship〔http://www.aa.org/assets/en_US/smf-92_en.pdf〕 founded in 1935 (two years after the end of prohibition in the United States in December 1933) by Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith in Akron, Ohio. AA states that its primary purpose is to help alcoholics "to stay sober and help other alcoholics achieve sobriety".〔(AA.org )〕〔Mäkelä 1996, p. 3〕 With other early members Bill Wilson and Bob Smith developed AA's Twelve Step program of spiritual and character development. AA's initial Twelve Traditions were introduced in 1946 to help the fellowship be stable and unified while disengaged from "outside issues" and influences. The Traditions recommend that members and groups remain anonymous in public media, altruistically helping other alcoholics and avoiding official affiliations with other organization. The Traditions also recommend that those representing AA avoid dogma and coercive hierarchies. Subsequent fellowships such as Narcotics Anonymous have adopted and adapted the Twelve Steps and the Twelve Traditions to their respective primary purposes. According to AA's 2014 membership survey, 27% of members have been sober less than one year, 24% have 1–5 years sober, 13% have 5–10 years, 14% have 10–20 years, and 22% have more than 20 years sober.〔(【引用サイトリンク】publisher=A.A. World Services )〕 The 2006 Cochrane Review of eight studies measuring the effectiveness of AA found no significant difference between the results of AA and twelve-step participation compared to other treatments, stating that "experimental studies have on the whole failed to demonstrate their effectiveness in reducing alcohol dependence or drinking problems when compared to other interventions."〔 The first female member, Florence Rankin, joined AA in March 1937, and the first non-Protestant member, a Roman Catholic, joined in 1939.〔Kurtz 1991. pp. 52"〕 AA membership has since spread "across diverse cultures holding different beliefs and values", including geopolitical areas resistant to grassroots movements. In the fourth edition of Alcoholics Anonymous (November 2001), it states "Since the third edition was published in 1976, worldwide membership of AA has just about doubled, to an estimated two million or more..." AA's name is derived from its first book, informally called "The Big Book", originally titled ''Alcoholics Anonymous: The Story of How More Than One Hundred Men Have Recovered From Alcoholism''. ==Oxford Group origins== (詳細はThe Oxford Group, a non-denominational movement modeled after first-century Christianity. Some members found the Group to help in maintaining sobriety. One such "Grouper", as they were called, was Ebby Thacher, Wilson's former drinking buddy and his acknowledged sponsor. Following the evangelical bent of the Group, Thacher told Wilson that he had "got religion" and was sober, and that Wilson could do the same if he set aside objections to religion and instead formed a personal idea of God, "another power" or "higher power".〔''Pass It On'', p 117.〕 Wilson felt with Thacher a "kinship of common suffering" and—while drunk—attended his first Group gathering. Within days, Wilson admitted himself to the Charles B. Towns Hospital, but not before drinking four beers on the way—the last time Wilson drank alcohol. Under the care of Dr. William Duncan Silkworth (an early benefactor of AA), Wilson's detox included the deliriant belladonna.〔Pittman, Bill "AA the Way it Began" 1988, Glenn Abbey Books〕 At the hospital in a state of despair, Wilson experienced a bright flash of light, which he felt to be God revealing himself.〔Kurtz 1991. pp. 18–20〕 Following his hospital discharge Wilson joined the Oxford Group and recruited other alcoholics to the Group. Wilson's early efforts to help others become sober were ineffective, prompting Dr. Silkworth to suggest that Wilson place less stress on religion and more on "the science" of treating alcoholism. Wilson's first success came during a business trip to Akron, Ohio, where he was introduced to Dr. Robert Smith, a surgeon and Oxford Group member who was unable to stay sober. After thirty days of working with Wilson, Smith drank his last drink on June 10, 1935, the date marked by AA for its anniversaries.〔〔Kurtz 1991. pp. 16–17〕 While Wilson and Smith credited their sobriety to working with alcoholics under the auspices of the Oxford Group, a Group associate pastor sermonized against Wilson and his alcoholic Groupers for forming a "secret, ashamed sub-group" engaged in "divergent works".〔 By 1937, Wilson separated from the Oxford Group. AA Historian Ernest Kurtz described the split:〔Kurtz 1991. pp. 45–46〕 ''...more and more, Bill discovered that new adherents could get sober by believing in each other and in the strength of this group. Men (women were members yet ) who had proven over and over again, by extremely painful experience, that they could not get sober on their own had somehow become more powerful when two or three of them worked on their common problem. This, then—whatever it was that occurred among them—was what they could accept as a power greater than themselves. They did not need the Oxford Group.'' In 1955, Wilson acknowledged AA's debt, saying "The Oxford Groupers had clearly shown us what to do. And just as importantly, we learned from them ''what not to do.''" Among the Oxford Group practices that AA retained were informal gatherings, a "changed-life" developed through "stages", and working with others for no material gain, AA's analogs for these are meetings, "the steps", and sponsorship. AA's tradition of anonymity was a reaction to the publicity-seeking practices of the Oxford Group, as well as AA's wish to not promote, Wilson said, "erratic public characters who through broken anonymity might get drunk and destroy confidence in us."〔Kurtz 1991. pp. 46–8〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Alcoholics Anonymous」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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