alcoholic, and disagreements, infighting, and controversies over prohibition eventually destroyed the group. The Washingtonians became so thoroughly extinct that, some 70 years later in 1935 when William Griffith Wilson ("Bill") and Dr. Robert Smith ("Dr. Bob") joined together in forming Alcoholics Anonymous, neither of them had ever heard of the Washingtonians. Although comparisons are made between the Washingtonians and Alcoholics Anonymous, in some respects they have more in common with modern secular drug addiction recovery groups. The Washingtonians were so non-religious and non-spiritual that religious critics accused them of humanism heresy, i.e., in their terms, of "placing their own power above the power of God". See also Temperance organizations Martha Washingtonians References Sources Blocker, Jack S. et al. (Eds.), Alcohol and Temperance in Modern History, vol. 2, Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio 2003. Blumberg, Leonard U. The significance of the alcohol prohibitionists for the Washingtonian Temperance Society. The Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 1980, 41(L). Koch, Donald A. A Dictionary of Literary Biographers; Antebellum Writers in New York and the South. Vol 3. Myers, Joe (Ed.) : Detroit: Bruccoli, 1979, 3-7. Leonard U. Blumberg & William L. Pittman, Beware the First Drink! The Washingtonian Temperance Movement and Alcoholics Anonymous, Seattle: Glen Abbey Books, 1991, . External links Abraham Lincoln's Temperance address to the Washingtonians, 1842 Washingtonian Forebears of Alcoholics Anonymous 1840 establishments in Maryland Addiction and substance abuse organizations Drug rehabilitation Temperance organizations in the United States Therapeutic community