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years later, when two national articles were published in rapid succession. The first appeared in
Liberty
, a very popular magazine run by Fulton Oursler, an early Oxford Group member who would also later serve as a trustee of the Alcoholic Foundation, AA’s governing body. The article was a glowing account of Wilson’s organization. The writer, Morris Markey, called AA’s method an overwhelming success, despite a notable absence of any evidence that might attest to such success. Subtitled “A Cure That Borders on the Miraculous—and It Works!,” the piece relied heavily on sources of Wilson’s choosing, especially Dr. William Silkworth, the physician at Towns Hospital who had been so impressed by Wilson’s conversion that he gave him free rein to circulate among the patients.
    “Within the last four years,” Markey wrote, “evidence has appeared which has startled hard-boiled medical men by proving that the compulsion neurosis can be entirely eliminated.” Describing how the organization approached new members, Markey wrote, “One or another of the members keeps working on him from day to day. And presently the miracle.”
    Silkworth, a supporter of AA from its inception, was quoted as well, assembling a motley collection of speculation and anecdote into a theory of his own:
    We all know that the alcoholic has an urge to share his troubles. . . . But the psychoanalyst, being of human clay, is not often a big enough man for that job. The patient simply cannot generate enough confidence in him. But the patient can have enough confidence in God—once he has gone through the mystical experience of recognizing God. And upon that principle the Alcoholic Foundation rests. The medical profession, in general, accepts the principle as sound.
    This may have been true of some in the medical profession, but a representative opinion it was not. Yet Wilson and AA would go on to score an even greater public relations coup in the months that followed, when America’s most widely read magazine, the
Saturday Evening Post
, ran a feature on March 1, 1941, written by Jack Alexander and called simply “Alcoholics Anonymous.” It was so effusive and unqualified in its praise that copies are still circulated by AA members.
    Alexander’s writing took the form of a skeptic’s journey from doubt to belief, a narrative that practically hums with enchantment—not just with AA’s methods, but with its approach to living generally. (Alexander would also go on to become a trustee of the Alcoholic Foundation.)
    Among other points, Alexander echoed and amplified the same antiprofessional message as the
Liberty
article, underscoring what remains a widely held belief among many AA members: that only an alcoholic can help another alcoholic: “A bridge of confidence is thereby erected, spanning a gap, which has baffled the physician, the minister, the priest, or the hapless relatives. . . . Only an alcoholic can squat on another alcoholic’s chest for hours with the proper combination of discipline and sympathy.” Alexander also waxed poetic about the rosy existence of those saved by AA, highlighting a parade of success stories. One extended passage memorably described the benefits of joining AA’s nationwide brotherhood of bonhomie:
    For the Brewsters, the Martins, the Watkinses, the Tracys, and the other reformed alcoholics, congenial company is now available wherever they happen to be. In the larger cities, A.A.s meet one another daily at lunch in favored restaurants. The Cleveland groups give big parties on New Year’s and other holidays, at which gallons of coffee and soft drinks are consumed. Chicago holds open house on Friday, Saturday and Sunday—alternating, on the North, West, and South Sides—so that no lonesome A.A. need revert to liquor over the weekend for lack of companionship. Some play cribbage or bridge, the winner of each hand contributing to a kitty for paying of entertainment expenses. The others listen to the