Tribes of the Recovering Community

This week’s tribe is International Doctors In Alcoholics Anonymous:

IDAA is a group of approximately 6000 recovering health care professionals of doctorate level who help one another achieve and maintain sobriety from addictions.

IDAA strongly supports mainstream AA as the basis for everyone’s recovery program and that needs to be first and foremost. We are not terminally unique! However, specific issues do arise for healthcare professionals and impaired doctors that are hard to deal with in regular AA meetings. Many of these issues are explored in the safe environment of the IDAA annual meetings and in the online email-based meetings on this website. There are no dues or fees for membership, just the desire to stay sober and off mood-altering drugs.

Its history:

International Doctors in Alcoholics Anonymous had its origins in the garage of Dr. Clarence Pearson in upstate New York in 1949. Dr. Pearson, a recovering alcoholic and practicing physician, and his wife Polly invited other physicians and their families for an AA retreat at their summer home near the Canadian border.

Attendance at that summer meeting totaled 34. Doctors from the United States, three from Canada and the presence of a psychologist as well as physicians, made the meeting both international and interdisciplinary. Hence the organization International Doctors in AA was founded.

Since that time, annual meetings of IDAA have been held in early August in various locations around the country. The format has changed to some degree from the early years, but the core remain the same – good fundamental AA meetings. Al-Anon and Teen fellowship meetings have been added through the years. IDAA meetings are truly a family affair for many.

Attending the annual IDAA meeting and interacting with many other recovering healthcare professional helps greatly in dealing with professional issues involving recovery and living clean and sober. There are also cosponsored scientific presentations, carrying CME credits, addressing the state of the art in the field of alcoholism and allied diseases.

International Doctors in AA is a fellowship of doctors and their families whose primary purpose is to support one another in recovery from alcoholism and other drug addictions. There are no dues or fees to join. We are self supporting through our own contributions. The only requirement for membership is the doctor’s desire to belong.

IDAA (International Doctors in Alcoholics Anonymous) – Home.