Around AA

Good sponsorship is one of the keys to AA's success, but who's sponsoring whom? If you were to ask Class A (nonalcoholic) trustee William E. Flynn, MD, he could tell you how it works when AAs sponsor non-AAs. Bill, an assistant professor of psychiatry and director of studies in alcohol and drug abuse at the Georgetown University School of Medicine in Washington, D.C., was introduced to AA while he was teaching medical students about alcoholism. At a meeting of the National Council on Alcoholism, he met past Class B trustee John W., who said, "If you'd like to send your students to an AA meeting, let me know. And if they need sponsors, we can find them, too." That chance conversation planted the seed for a pilot program in educating medical students about AA.