Speaking of Faith: Alcoholics Anonymous

An estimated one in 13 American adults abuse, or are addicted to, alcohol. Until the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) in the 1930's, alcoholism was a ruinous and nearly always fatal affliction, immune to the best methods of psychology or medicine. AA made extended sobriety possible for the first time. It did so by analyzing alcoholism as a physical, mental, and spiritual disease.

The only requirement for membership in AA is a desire to quit drinking. Not every person who participates in AA recovers. But at its core, when it works, AA is a spiritual discipline and practice ? a way of life that a recovering alcoholic undertakes in relationship with other alcoholics. It's possible to imagine, in such language, a quasi-religious movement, and there was a significant Christian influence in the formative years of AA. But the movement's power over several decades has lain in part in its remarkable ability to translate across the world's cultures and traditions.

Host Krista Tippett speaks with author Susan Cheever, who has written widely about her own experiences with alcoholism and recovery. She also talks with Basil Braveheart of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, a Lakota healer who reclaimed traditional Lakota spiritual practices in his recovery from alcoholism.