reception for him in Montpelier. Bob had the idea of going up there and said that since we didn’t have any money, we should try to hop a freight the way that tramp did.
“We found a car with an open door and jumped in, not knowing whether the train was going to Montreal or Boston, upriver or down. Fortunately, it went up the Connecticut River, stopping at every little station along the way as it got colder and darker.
“We made it to Montpelier the next day. When we arrived, covered with straw and somewhat disheveled, Bob decided we needed a few beers, though it was only around breakfast time.
“Going out into the street, we met a Dartmouth man whose father happened to be Governor of Vermont. When we told him we had come to see Admiral Dewey, he invited us to view the parade with the Governor at the State House. So, in spite of our appearance, we were honored by sitting with the Governor (in the background, of course) and watching the procession in real state.”
On the whole, that seems to be a harmless escapade; a youngster who would flout his parents’ five-o’clock curfew by sneaking out of the house might be expected to grow up into a young man who would hop a freight on impulse.
But the boy who savored a first taste of hard cider, on the sly, had also grown up into a man who considered “a few beers” to be perfectly sensible refreshment at breakfast time.
Dr. Bob spent his last years at Dartmouth doing, by his own account, “what I wanted to do, without regard for the rights, wishes, or privileges of others, a state of mind which became more and more predominant as the years passed.”
He was graduated in 1902— “‘summa cum laude’ in the eyes of the drinking fraternity,” in his own words, but with a somewhat lower estimate from the dean. (More formally, he was a member of Kappa Kappa Kappa.)
In most Dartmouth classmates’ recollections of Bob, there was a notable gap of almost 35 years—for reasons that eventually became obvious.
The Alumni Magazine of November 1936 included this brief note: “Some of you fellows have been wondering about Bob Smith, but you can let up on it now. Bob says that while he has been in Hanover many times, he could never make it at reunion time. He hopes now to be present in June 1937.”
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
