The Story of How Many Thousands of Men and Women Have Recovered from Alcoholism. Because this book has become the basic text for our Society and has helped such large numbers of alcoholic men and women to recovery, there exists strong sentiment against any radical changes being made in it. Therefore, the first portion of this volume (pages 1-164), describing the A.A. recovery program, has been left untouched in the course of revisions made for the second, third, and fourth editions. To show other alcoholics (and addicts) precisely how we have recovered is the main purpose of this book.