The Factory Owner & the Convict

Book excerpt: William E. Correll (Life Treatment Center) "This book describes the way alcoholics actually think better than anything I have ever read." The world of the good old-timers of the early Alcoholics Anonymous movement comes alive in this book. It tells the interlocking stories of seven people from diverse backgrounds--men, women, black, white, wealthy, poor--who lived and taught the A.A. program with such clarity and spiritual depth, that people came from miles away to sit at their feet and be taught by them. This account was originally written for the local intergroups, to tell how A.A. began during the 1940's and 50's in the cities and towns along the St. Joseph river, as it wound its way through Indiana and Michigan to empty into the Great Lakes. But then all across the country, people struggling with alcoholism and addiction began asking for copies, and psychotherapists and counselors too. It spoke to the heart, they said. It made the twelve step program come alive and showed how it really worked. And above all, they reported, they had found that the words of these men and women were filled with a kind of spiritual wisdom and deep compassion which had the power to heal the soul. So this new edition of The Factory Owner & the Convict has now been prepared, with the last half now printed as a separate volume entitled The St. Louis Gambler & the Railroad Man.