At a Meeting of Doctors' Wives. . .

THE FIRST time I ever heard about AA was at a medical wives' meeting, held in the magnificent home of a physician in an exclusive suburb of a large city. There were perhaps twenty-five or thirty women present, wives of physicians or professional men in the field of medical research and teaching. I'd been told that many doctors' wives were problem drinkers, because they were left alone a lot and their sleep was often disturbed by late calls for medical attention. (Why does everyone get desperately ill between the hours of midnight and dawn?) At any rate, there we were at the meeting that evening, and the program chairman (a psychiatrist's wife) introduced her guests as two recovering alcoholics, members of AA--no names.