About 2,000 Alcoholics Anonymous meetings run weekly

About 2,000 Alcoholics Anonymous meetings now take place across Australia each week, 81 years after the country’s first AA meeting in March 1945.

In March 1945, a small group of Australians held the first AA meeting in this country. Since then, the fellowship has spread nationwide and helped countless members find a different way to live.

Alcoholism reaches far beyond one drinker. According to AA’s long record in Australia, families, friendships, workplaces and communities often carry the harm too.

May’s son sober for 36 years

That family role dates back to AA’s earliest years here. Letters from Dr Sylvester Minogue, a psychiatrist and Medical Superintendent at Rydalmere Hospital, show that partners often brought loved ones to meetings in the hope that something might change.

At Sydney Town Hall in 1965, AA marked its 20th anniversary in Australia. Early member Russ J told the gathering, “None of us would be here if not for them.”

May, not her real name, is now 89 and has seen that pattern in her own family. Her son has been sober for 36 years, and he credits her support and tough love with helping him reach AA.

She first heard about the fellowship from other parents whose sons and daughters had found help there. Those parents recognised in her son’s drinking the same signs they had seen in their own children.

May recalls that she did not first understand alcoholism as an illness. After her son began attending meetings, she saw a clear change in his life.

She described that shift in simple terms: “Once he was going to meetings, it was a huge weight off my shoulders. I didn’t have to worry anymore.”

Over the next 36 years, May watched him become a husband and father, study, build a career and a home, and return as a much-loved member of the family. She is also proud that helping others remains a big part of AA for him.

Across the decades since 1945, May has noticed a wider shift in public talk about alcoholism and recovery in Australia. In her earlier years, AA felt hidden, but she believes the subject is discussed more openly now.

Even before AA reached Australia, doctors wrote about the effect on relatives. In May 1941, the Medical Journal of Australia said each alcoholic who recovered would likely bring happiness, or at least less suffering, to a whole family.