Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is a global mutual aid fellowship dedicated to abstinence-based recovery from alcoholism  through its spiritually inclined Twelve Steps. AA's Twelve Traditions stress anonymity and a primary focus on recovery, as well as aiming to keep AA free to all with no governing hierarchy while abstaining from public controversies and unallied with other institutions, organizations or causes. In 2021 AA estimated it was active in 180 countries with nearly two million members, with 73% in the United States and Canada.^]

AA’s origin dates to a 1935 Ohio meeting between Bill Wilson (Bill W) and Bob Smith (Dr. Bob). (For anonymity members often go by first name and last name initial.) Having met through the Christian revivalist Oxford Group, they continued under its aegis to fellowship with other alcoholics until forming what became AA. In 1939 the fellowship introduced its Twelve Steps with the publication of Alcoholics Anonymous: he Story of How One Hundred men Have Recovered from Alcoholism. Known as "the Big Book", later editions amended the subtitle with "Thousands of Men and Women".

The Twelve Steps are a suggested, but not required, ongoing self-improvement program to abstain from alcohol with the aid of a personally chosen higher power. After admitting to no control of drinking, chaotic lives, and the need for divine assistance, transgressions and personal failings of morals and character are listed and addressed through better actions and atonement. To maintain these gains, appeal is made to an unprescribed “God as we understood Him”, and the carrying of AA’s message to other alcoholics, which is often done through meetings and sponsorship of other alcoholics.

AA meeting formats vary with some being studies of AA literature and others have speakers and attendees sharing what AA calls their “experience, strength and hope” from speakers and/or from attendees. Open meetings restrict no one, while others are for distinct demographics such as LGBTQIA+, and men or women only meetings are common. Agnostic and atheist meetings are also not uncommon.

In regards to AA’s effectiveness, a 2020 Cochrane found that AA involvement via Twelve-Step Facilitation (TSF) therapy demonstrated higher rates of continuous abstinence, and compared to other treatments, including cognitive behaviorial, AA attendance over time resulted in better healthcare cost savings. Rowland Hazard's journey from Carl Jung's psychiatric treatment to spiritual conversion through the Oxford Group played a pivotal role in shaping the foundations of Alcoholics Anonymous, influencing its principles of recovery. In 1926, Hazard went to Zurich, Switzerland, to seek treatment for alcoholism with psychiatrist Carl Jung. When Hazard ended treatment with Jung after about a year, and came back to the US, he soon resumed drinking, and returned to Jung in Zurich for further treatment. Jung told Hazard that his case was nearly hopeless (as with other alcoholics) and that his only hope might be a "spiritual conversion" with a "religious group".

Back in America, Hazard went to the Oxford Group, whose teachings were eventually the source of such AA concepts as "meetings" and "sharing" (public confession), making "restitution", "rigorous honesty" and "surrendering one's will and life to God's care". He became converted to a lifetime of sobriety while on a train ride from New York to Detroit after reading For Sinners Only, by Oxford Group member AJ Russell. Hazard underwent a "spiritual conversion" with the help of the Group and began to experience the liberation from drink that he was seeking. Members of the group introduced Hazard to Ebby Thcher, whom Hazard brought to the Calvary Rescue Mission, directed by Oxford Group leader Sam Shoemaker.

In keeping with the Oxford Group teaching that a new convert must win other converts to preserve his own conversion experience, Thacher contacted his old friend Bill Wilson, whom he knew had a drinking problem.^[Thacher approached Wilson, saying that he had "got religion", was sober, and that Wilson could do the same if he set aside objections and instead formed a personal idea of God, "another power" or "higher power".

Feeling a "kinship of common suffering", Wilson attended his first group gathering, although he was drunk. Within days, Wilson admitted himself to the Charles B. Yowns Hospital after drinking four beers on the way—the last alcohol he ever drank. Under the care of William Duncan Silkworth, an early benefactor of AA,.At the hospital, a despairing Wilson experienced a bright flash of light, which he felt to be God revealing himself.