Dr. Bob has never fully shown or revealed his face, but he appears to be a tall pale Caucasian male dressed in brown work pants and a red sweater with a white lab coat sporting a bright orange name tag with his name on it. Early A.A. was not about “relationships anonymous.” Whether they read the Bible, the Ten Commandments, or the Four Absolutes, AAs were given much instruction on how to behave in accordance with God’s will. This is true today in only a very limited While the boy, Rob, was high- spirited, considered rebellious and wayward, he was also industrious and labored long and hard at anything he really wanted to do. He wanted, above all else, to become a medical doctor like his maternal grand- father.

Dr. Bob recalled, bottom 96- PG97 from DR bob and good old timers—said that many early ideas A.A.’s fundamental ideas came from the study of the Bible and that he personally did not write or have anything to do with the later writing of the 12 Steps. In Dr. Bob’s mind, the Steps in their deepest essence simply mean “love and service.”

Development log

In the summers the family often spent some weeks in a cottage by the sea. Here Bob became an expert swimmer. He and his foster sister, Nancy, spent many hours building and sailing their own sailboats. It was here that he saved a young girl from drowning. Dr. Bob’s interest in Jesus’ sermon was exemplified not only by the many times he studied and quoted it, but also by the foregoing books as well as the following specific studies of the Sermon on the Mount: Studies in the Sermon on the Mount by Oswald Chambers, The Christ of the Mount by E. Stanley Jones, The Sermon on the Mount by Emmet Fox, and The Soul’s Sincere Desire and I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes by Glenn Clark. Robert Holbrook Smith (August 8, 1879 – November 16, 1950), also known as Dr. Bob, was an American physician and surgeon who founded Alcoholics Anonymous with Bill Wilson (more commonly known as Bill W.). That they might have the answer to his drinking problem never entered his head, but he thought it could do him no harm to study their philosophy. For the next two and one half years he attended their meetings. And got drunk regularly! Then one Saturday afternoon, Henrietta called Anne. Could they come over to meet a friend of hers who might help Bob. AAs were told by Sam Shoemaker, by the Oxford Group, and by their own literature that they needed to find God and find Him now! Sam Shoemaker wrote on this topic a great deal. So did Leslie D. Weatherhead in books that Bill Wilson owned or may have owned. So did the other writers.

We will cover our bibliographies in a moment. But here there should be a list of some particularly popular spiritual books early AAs read and which were read by Dr. Bob as well: James Allen’s As A Man Thinketh; Glenn Clark’s Fishers of Men, Two or Three Gathered Together, How to Find Health Through Prayer, and Touchdowns for the The Confessions of St. Augustine, The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis, and The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence were all owned by Bob and were frequently quoted by the writers whose books Bob read. Dr. Bob is a friendly and very openly courteous man despite his supposed relation to the Foundation, who are infamously known for their secretive nature and somewhat detached emotions. He enjoys explaining the many mysteries of the SCP Foundation and the various entities/objects within their custody. Very rarely does Dr. Bob break his professional, clinical tone in his presentations. Dr. Bob was a humble man. His humility was born, no doubt, of his humiliations before his good wife, Anne, and his colleagues in the medical profession. This led to the great step of becoming humble before his God. Here was the crisis in his life: at last, he found the God who he knew would help him if he would only place a humble confidence in him. This is the story of Dr. Bob. It is the story, too, of the Twelve Steps that logically follow, once the situation is faced with honest realism.Though they may not realize it today, AAs received a rich body of instruction concerning the body of Christ, from the Book of Acts and the many Christian materials they read. They learned the intended meaning of the fellowship of the Spirit, and how God worked with His children where two or three were gathered together. While Dr. Robert Holbrook Smith thoroughly appreciated the spirit of personal gratitude that usually prompted such superlatives, he never took them seriously as applicable to himself. He rose up to tell with all humility the simple story of an alcoholic’s return to sobriety. Dr. Bob seldom called upon his vast experience with others. He simply repeated in different ways the story of one man’s great return. And that was his own. Dr. Bob’s reasoning was quite typical at this time, if not quite logical. It would make very little difference if he did take a few drinks now. The liquor that he and his friends had bought in amounts according to the size of their bank accounts would soon be gone. He could come to no harm. He was soon to learn the facts of the Great American Experiment. Slowly at first, then with sudden clarity, Dr. Bob began to understand. Bill had been able to control his drinking problem by the very means that Dr. Bob himself had been trying to use—but there was a difference. The spiritual approach was as useless as any other if you soaked it up like a sponge and kept it all to yourself. True, Bill had been preaching his message at any drunk who would listen; he had been unsuccessful until now, but the important thing was that by giving his knowledge away, he, himself, was sober! There was one more short binge for Dr. Bob after that talk. On June 10, 1935, he took his last drink remaining sober until his death on November 15, 1950. Through these years Dr. Bob was an active member of the City Hospital Staff and often he had occasion to go to St. Thomas Hospital, where in 1934 he became a member of the Courtesy Staff and in 1943 a member of the Active Staff. It was during one of these visits to St. Thomas, in 1928, that in the course of his duties, he met Sister Mary Ignatia, whose work with alcoholics was to become a legend.

At the end of most of his videos, the antagonistic SCP that was the focus of the video may appear before Dr. Bob, though the Doctor will always appear to ward them off, outsmart them or even fight them off single-handedly. Starting his YouTube channel on October 1, 2020, with the description Hi! I'm Dr. Bob! I love animation and I love SCP! Join me as we delve into the SCP Foundation's archives in these animations! Dr. Bob is one of the most popular animated based SCP youtubers due to his impressively creative animations and the soft and engaging narration of his voice actor. Dr. Bob was intensely interested in the efficacy of prayer, and his library bespeaks this interest. Among his many books about the subject of prayer were Glenn Clark’s The Soul’s Sincere Desire, Starr Daily’s Recovery, Mary Baker Eddy’s Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Charles and Cora Filmore’s Teach Us to Pray, Emmet Fox’s Getting Results by Prayer, Gerald Heard’s A Preface to Prayer, Frank Laubach’s Prayer (Mightiest Force in the World), Charles M. Layman’s A Primer of Prayer, William R. Parker’s Prayer Can Change Your Life, and F. L. Rawson’s The Nature of True Prayer. Now he held a Dartmouth diploma, but the desire to become a medical doctor was still with him. His mother, who had never approved of this career for her son, hadn’t altered her views. For the next two years he worked for a large scale company; then he went to Montreal where he labored at selling railway supplies, and heavy hardware. He left Montreal and went to Filene’s store in Boston. All through this period he was drinking as much as purse allowed, still without getting into any serious trouble. But he wasn’t making any headway either. He still wanted to be a doctor. It was time he was about it. He quit his job at the store and that Fall entered the University of Michigan as a pre-medical student. Again he was free of all restraint. Earnestly, he got down to the serious business of drinking as much as he could and still make it to class in the morning. His famous capacity for beer followed him to the Michigan campus. He was elected to member- ship in the drinking fraternity. Once again he displayed the wonders of his “patent throat” before his gaping brothers.

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Bob frequently spoke of God as a God of love. He summarized A.A.’s ideas as being, in their essence, “love and service.” Though the two years as intern at City were hectic, Dr. Bob had time to learn much from the older men who were glad to share their knowledge with him. He began to perfect his own skills so that he might be- come a specialist, a surgeon. When his two years of internship were over he opened an office in The Second National Bank Building, in Akron. This was in 1912. His offices were in the same building until he retired from practice in 1948. Of the Oxford Group books and the Bible] . . . I had done an immense amount of reading they had recommended. I had refreshed my memory of the Good Book, and I had had excellent training in that as a youngster (The Co-Founders of Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 11-12).