December 10 in A.A. History

In 1934, having gone to Calvary Church Rescue Mission just three days earlier with Ebby T. while drunk, and then spending two days at home detoxing, Bill W. returned home roaring drunk. This provoked an argument with his wife, Lois, who angrily shouted, “You don’t even have the decency to die! You’re crazy! You’re! Crazy!” In a fit of rage, Bill picked up her sewing machine [right: a 1934 model] and threw it against the wall, terrifying Lois. He then left and rode the subways all night, panhandling for money to buy booze. For a long time, Lois was plagued by deep regret for her outburst.

In 1975, the first Birds of a Feather (BOAF) Nest (i.e., group) was formed in Seattle, Washington. From their website:

    Birds of a Feather International [left: logo] is a worldwide network of meetings based on the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. It was established for pilots and cockpit crew members active or inactive in private, commercial or military aviation. BOAF provides AA meetings worldwide (including ZOOM [Oops! Not all these are what you might think!] meetings), a yearly convention, a newsletter and a website for pilots and cockpit crew members in recovery.

December 9 in A.A. History

In 1985, David “Dave” B. [right], 76, died with 40 years of sobriety. In April 1944, he founded the Montreal Group, the first A.A. group in Quebec, and served as a Class B (alcoholic) General Service Board Trustee from 1962 to 1964. His story, “Gratitude In Action,” appeared in the fourth edition of the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous.
    In 1959, Quebec had established its own literature committee—Les Editions Francaises A.A.—where Dave had played a significant role in translating the Big Book and other A.A. materials into French, advising the General Service Office on the challenges encountered. One outcome was a French version of the Big Book, le Gros Livre, Les Alcooliques anonymes, which became the foundational text for all French-speaking groups worldwide.

December 8 in A.A. History

In 1903, test pilot Charles Manly made a second attempt at manned flight in Professor Langley’s heavier-than-air craft. His first attempt in October had ended in a crash into the Potomac River after a wing apparently clipped the launcher. The plane was still catapulted, still lacked landing gear, still had controls only for pitch and yaw, and still had none for roll [see diagram at left]. During this second attempt, the plane broke apart as it was launched toward the Potomac. Miraculously, Manly survived once again.
    Newspapers took great delight in reporting the failures [right: The New York Times, 10 Dec 1903, page 8], and some Congressmen harshly criticized the project.
    The Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous, refers to these events in the chapter “We Agnostics” on page 51.

December 7 in A.A. History

In 1934, Ebby T. took a drunken Bill W. to the Oxford Group meeting at Calvary Church Rescue Mission [right] after Bill had expressed interest the day before. At the meeting, Bill ended up “testifying” from the podium, and perhaps even accepting Jesus Christ as his Savior. Amazingly, on the way home, Bill lost all desire to drink and spent the next two days in his bedroom tapering off alcohol.

In 1949, Sister Ignatia accepted the College of Steubenville’s 1st annual Poverello Medal of St. Francis of Assisi [far left: The New York Times announcement, 3 Dec 1949, p. 14, the medal itself, and the certificate that came with it] on behalf of “the entire fellowship” of Alcoholics Anonymous, in recognition of its “tremendous contribution… to Humanity.”

In 2022, the United Kingdom’s BBC Two premiered the documentary I’m An Alcoholic: Inside Recovery, which for the first time allowed cameras into Alcoholics Anonymous (UK) meetings while protecting members’ anonymity through the use of deep-fake imagery. This potentially troubling visual manipulation technique demonstrated a positive application in this context, as it altered members’ faces to make them unrecognizable to close friends [right: altered faces, as seen in the film]. The one-off documentary also explored the organization’s roots in the pre-World War II United States and discussed its role in modern society, commemorating A.A.’s 75th anniversary in the UK. London England’s The Guardian described it as “a sensitive and impeccably balanced documentary.”

December 6 in A.A. History

In 1934, Ebby T. visited Bill W. [near right: Bill & Ebby] for the second time, this time accompanied by his Oxford Group (OG) friend, Sheppard “Shep” Cornell [left] . They came to discuss the OG with Bill. Although Bill was unimpressed by Shep, his curiosity prompted him to ask Ebby to take him to the Calvary Rescue Mission, where regular OG meetings were held and where Ebby was staying. Lois W. later noted that Ebby visited several times.

In 1939, Herbert “Bert” T. [right], who owned a fashionable clothing business on 5th Avenue in New York City, loaned Works Publishing, Inc. $1,000 [~ $23,300 in 2025]. 
    In 1954, Bill W. described what had happened:

    … We learned [that Bert’s shop] was mostly on mortgage, [Bert] having drunk nearly all of it up.… 
    I went up to Bert one day and I said “Bert, there is a promise of an article in Liberty magazine.… It won’t come out until next September.… Bert, when that piece is printed, these books will go out in carload lots [i.e. railroad cars]. We need $1,000 bucks to get us through the summer.” 
    Bert asked, “Well, are you sure that the article is going to be printed?” “Oh yes,” I said, “that’s final.” He said, “O.K., I haven’t got the dough but there’s this man down in Baltimore, Mr. Cochran, he’s a customer of mine, he buys his pants in here. Let me call him up.’’
    Bert calls Mr. Cochran long-distance, explains the situation, and asks, “If you’ll just buy a couple of thousand of those books and put them in the large libraries, of course we would sell them for that purpose at a considerable discount.… Would you loan the Works Publishing Company this [$1,000]?”
    Mr. Cochran asked about the company balance sheet, and after he learned, he said “No thanks.”
    So Bert then said, “Now Mr. Cochran, you know me. Would you loan the money to me on the credit of my business?” “Why certainly,” Mr. Cochran said, “send me down your note.”
    So Bert hocked the business that a year or two later was to go broke anyway and saved the book Alcoholics Anonymous. The thousand dollars lasted until the Liberty article came out. 800 inquiries came in as a result of that, we moved a few books and we barely squeaked through the year 1939.

In 1940, Dr. Gilbert “Gib” K. of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, wrote to the Alcoholic Foundation in New York City a second time, requesting contact information for the nearest A.A. groups—in Madison, Wisconsin, and Chicago, Illinois—and enclosing $3.50 [~$79 in 2025] for a copy of the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous. More than six weeks earlier, on October 23, he had contacted the Foundation for help. The reply, dated December 3, informed him of the book’s cost and offered, if he requested it, contact information for the two nearest A.A. groups.

In 1979, Henrietta Buckler Seiberling [left], 91, a key figure in the founding and development of Alcoholics Anonymous, died at her home in New York City. In 1935, she had opened her home, Stan Hywet’s Gate Lodge in Akron, Ohio, to two alcoholics, Bill W. and Dr. Bob S. This meeting had marked the beginning of the worldwide A.A. movement, in which she would remain involved until the end of her life, even though she was not an alcoholic.

December in A.A. History—day unknown

In 1912, in Paris, France, La Clochette (The Little Bell) published the earliest known version of what would later be known as “The Prayer of St. Francis.” This version was published anonymously under the title “Belle prière à faire pendant la messe” (A Beautiful Prayer to Say During the Mass) [left]. 
    La Clochette was a small spiritual magazine that published monthly in French from 1901 to 1919, operated by a Catholic Church organization in Paris called La Ligue de la Sainte-Messe (The League of the Holy Mass). Founded by Father Esther Bouquerel (1855–1923), who also edited the magazine, it had about 8,000 subscribers. The author of this prayer could very well have been Father Bouquerel himself, as he wrote the majority of the texts in La Clochette. Some researchers have noted similarities between this prayer and Pope Leo XIII’s 1899 la Prière de la Consécration (du genre humain) au Sacré-Cœur de Jésus (The Prayer of Consecration (of the human race) to the Sacred Heart of Jesus). However, the true identity of the author remains a mystery.

In 1934 [late December], Bill and Lois W. started attending Oxford Group meetings in New York City with Ebby T. [near right] and Shep Cornell [far right], who held a seat on the New York Stock Exchange and, along with Ebby and Lois’ families, also summered in Manchester, Vermont. Lois described it as “an ecstatic time for us both.”

In 1938, Bill W. [left, late 1930s] and others have often claimed that the editing of the working manuscript for the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous (as well as the preceding draft chapters), resulted in scenes where members “fought, bled, and died” throughout one chapter after another. They assert that Bill was merely an umpire, recording the consensus as it developed. However, the reality was that the actual arguments and discussions mostly took place between Hank Parkhurst [near right], Fitz Mayo [far right], and Bill himself at the Honor Dealers headquarters in Newark, New Jersey.
    Correspondence between Bill and Ruth Hock [left], who, as Hank’s secretary, witnessed virtually everything from those early days, confirms this. While others may have contributed punctuation and some rewording, the main debates revolved around whether to include the word “God” in the Steps and to what extent. Fitz was deeply religious, Hank was adamantly atheistic, and Bill initially refused to make any changes to his Twelve Steps, which he believed were “inspired.”

December 4 in A.A. History

In 1950, Bill W. wrote to Scott B. that one of the compelling reasons for wanting to write Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions [left: first edition cover] was the realization that the original text of the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous, had become “frozen”—too “sacred” even for the taste of its principal author, Bill himself.