In November 1942, the class reporter noted: “Bob Smith as we know him is now Dr. Robert Smith. [He still hadn’t made the reunion.] He has sent me a book, ‘Alcoholics Anonymous.’ In the past few years, he has been very interested and, I judge, a prime worker in the field of rescuing the pitiable souls who have lost themselves in drink, so far having rescued over 8,000. I know of no more splendid work in the world. 1902 is proud of you, Bob.” And in March 1947: “Bob is one of the founders and prime movers of Alcoholics Anonymous, and the story of its growth and achievements is inspiring—especially when I can dig it out of Bob in his own picturesque language. A physician has grateful patients, but Bob has people coming here from all about who worship him. He has redeemed them from worse than death.”
(In 1947, A.A.’s Twelve Traditions — including the Eleventh, on maintaining anonymity in the public media—had not yet been accepted formally by the Fellowship as a whole.)
Professor Watson, in a 1958 letter to the A.A. General Service Office in New York, eight years after Dr. Bob’s death, mentioned that he had been a subject of discussion among five classmates at a house party on Cape Cod. Two of them had known Bob intimately in college and had later met him on and off in Chicago, Florida, California, and Ohio.
Professor Watson wrote, “We think there has hardly ever been a more widely beneficial uplift effort of any sort so genuine, so fruitful in human rescue, and so practically sensible as your wonderful Alcoholics Anonymous.” Using language more flowery than Dr. Bob might have liked, Professor Watson described his late classmate as “a great reformer of himself and others.
“As a class, we are proud to have had as a fellow member so dynamic and socially beneficial a creative figure as Dr. Robert Holbrook Smith, whose influence now extends to the ends of the earth,” he said.
But to the youthful Dartmouth graduate of 1902, such a far future would have been even less imaginable than the decades of painful experience that lay immediately ahead.
II. Postgraduate work: M.D. and alcoholic
Now that Bob held a diploma, it was suggested that he set out to make a living and carve a solid, secure future for himself. When it came to things he really wanted, Bob was hardworking. He was also ambitious, and he wanted to become a medical doctor like his maternal grandfather. For some reason we have never learned, however, his mother opposed this quite strongly. He had no choice at the time but to get a job.
Thus, Bob spent the next three years in Boston, Chicago, and Montreal, in a business career that was short, varied, and unsuccessful. For the first two years out of Dartmouth, he was employed by Fairbanks Morse, the St. Johnsbury scales manufacturing company for which his father had once been an attorney.
Arba J. Irvin, another Dartmouth classmate, recalled seeing Bob occasionally when he came to Chicago on business for Fairbanks Morse (and probably to see Anne, who was then teaching school at nearby Oak Park). “Bob wasn’t interested in business,” Mr. Irvin said. “In fact, every weekend he usually went on a bit of a binge.”
After two years with Fairbanks Morse, Bob went to Montreal to sell railway supplies, gas engines, and other items of heavy hardware. A few months later, he moved to Boston, where he worked for a short time at Filene’s department store, “which he didn’t like and wasn’t good at,” according to his son, Smitty.
Although Bob’s friends were aware of only occasional binges, he was drinking as much as he could afford throughout this period. Signs of progression in his illness appeared as he began to wake up with what he called “the morning jitters.” Yet he would boast that he lost only half a day’s work during those three years.
If he ignored, denied, or was unaware of his alcoholic progression, he did not deny the lack of progression in his business career. He still wanted to be a doctor, and somehow managed to persuade his family to let him pursue that aim. In the fall of 1905, when he was 26 years old, he entered the University of Michigan as a premedical student.
In spite of Bob’s high goals and good intentions, all restraints seemed to ease as he once again set foot on a college campus. He was elected to membership in a drinking society, of which, as he put it, he “became one of the leading spirits . . . drinking with much greater earnestness than I had previously shown.” All went well for a time. Then the shakes began to get worse.
On many mornings, Bob went to class and, even though fully prepared, turned away at the door and went back to the fraternity house. So bad were his jitters that he was afraid he would cause a scene if he should be called on.
This happened again and again, going from bad to worse. His life in school became one long binge after another, and he was no longer drinking for the sheer fun of it.
Dr. Bob didn’t mention having had blackouts at this time. He said nothing about compulsion, nameless fears, guilt, or the morning drink. Nonetheless, the shakes, missed classes, and binge drinking would have been more than enough to qualify him for A.A. But this was 1907, the spring of his second year at Michigan, and A.A. was 28 years in the future.
Still, Bob did make a surrender of sorts that year. He decided he could not complete his education and tried a “geographic cure” instead. He packed his bags and headed south to recuperate on a large farm owned by a friend.
The hospitality extended to him might have been part of his problem. All through the years of drinking, Bob could call on friends and colleagues to bail him out one more time. They rescued him, covered for him, smoothed things over for him.
After a month on the farm, the fog began to clear, and Bob realized that he might have acted hastily in leaving school. He decided to return and continue his work. The faculty had other ideas, however. They felt that the University of Michigan might survive, even prosper, without the presence of Robert Holbrook Smith. After long discussions, with promises and protests on one side, threats and admonitions on the other, Bob was allowed to return and take his exams.
That he did well might be considered a sign of natural ability and intelligence. It might also be considered a mark of the determination some alcoholics have to work harder, longer, and better than everyone else—for a while.
Following the exams, there were further painful discussions in the dean’s office. Despite his good last-minute showing, Bob was asked to leave. But he was given his credits, so that he was able to transfer as a junior in the fall of 1907 to Rush University, near Chicago.
There, his drinking became so much worse that fraternity brothers sent for his father. The judge made the long journey in a vain effort to get him straightened out. In later years, Dr. Bob recalled that his father always met these situations quietly, with an attempt at understanding. “Well, what did this one cost you?” he would ask. And that would only heighten Bob’s feelings of remorse.
He kept drinking, with hard liquor replacing the beer. He went on longer and longer binges, waking up with even more intense shakes. Just before final exams, Bob went on a particularly rough drunk. When he came in to take his tests, his hand trembled so badly that he could not hold a pencil. As a result, he handed in three absolutely blank examination booklets.
He was, of course, called on the carpet once again. More promises and protestations. The dean of this medical school decided that if Bob wished to graduate, he must come back for two more quarters, remaining completely dry.
This he was able to do, and as a result, he was given his medical degree in 1910, when he was 31 years old. In fact, his scholarship and deportment were both considered so meritorious that he was able to secure a highly coveted two-year internship at City Hospital, Akron, Ohio.
The two years as an intern were problem-free. Hard work took the place of hard drinking, simply because there wasn’t time for both. “I was kept so busy that I hardly left the hospital at all. Consequently, I could not get into any trouble,” Dr. Bob said.
At one time during his internship, Bob ran the hospital pharmacy. This, added to other duties, took him all over the building. Because