Against addiction: 70 years of Alcoholics Anonymous in Germany

Skip the first glass - that's what Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is all about.

Against addiction: 70 years of Alcoholics Anonymous in Germany

Skip the first glass - that's what Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is all about. The interest group is a contact point for people who want to stop drinking, but also for their relatives. In Germany they have been around for 70 years. Alcoholics Anonymous want to celebrate the anniversary at the end of March with two big events in Munich. Those affected reported on their experiences in Munich on Friday.

According to the addiction doctor Markus Backmund, around 75,000 people die every year in Germany from alcohol, half of them from accidents such as a fall on the way home. Alcohol addiction is a deadly disease, he clarified. Unlike cancer patients, for example, alcohol addicts could choose to live without the disease.

Alcoholics Anonymous offers regular meetings nationwide. The first meeting took place in Munich in November 1953, when US soldiers belonging to Alcoholics Anonymous gathered at a hotel for a German-speaking AA meeting. Alcoholics Anonymous is based in Gottfrieding in Lower Bavaria.

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