The first official U.S. military alcoholism treatment program in 1948 was established by William E. Swegan at Mitchel Air Force Base on Long Island. Swegan (along with world famous psychiatrist Dr. Louis Jolyon West at UCLA) was subsequently the developer in 1953 of what became the Lackland-Long Beach Method for alcoholism treatment.
Sgt. Bill Swegan, who was an atheist, was the great spokesman for that wing of early A.A. which stressed the psychological rather than the spiritual side of the program. Swegan was the author of “The Psychology of Alcoholism,” see http://hindsfoot.org/kbs1.html
A talk by Glenn F. Chesnut, Professor of History at Indiana University, for the panel on AA and the military at the 18th National Archives Workship at King of Prussia, Pennsylvania (outside Philadelphia) on October 9-12, 2014.
Video by Donnie Rogers at Grass Roots Media, South Bend, Indiana.
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