October 28 in A.A. History

In 1918, Bill W. [right, 1919 in France] arrived in France with Battery C, 66th Artillery, Coast Artillery Corps (C.A.C.). They would remain there until the end of the Great War (World War I) just 14 days later, on November 11 at 11:11 a.m., but would not return home until May 1919.

	In 1919, the U.S. Senate voted 65–20 to override President Wilson’s veto of the Volstead (National Prohibition) Act the day before; the House had also voted to override on the same day. Sponsored by the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Representative Andrew Volstead [left] of Minnesota, the act implemented the 18th Amendment, which prohibited “intoxicating liquors” without providing a clear definition.

    Some members of Congress believed this referred only to hard liquor. However, Wayne Wheeler [right], the head of the Anti-Saloon League, who actually written the legislation, had crafted it to define intoxicating liquors as any beverage containing more than 0.5% alcohol. The legislation made it illegal to “manufacture, sell, barter, transport, import, export, deliver, furnish, or possess” such beverages, though it did not prohibit their consumption.

In 1936, William “Bill” C. [left], 36, committed suicide at the home of Bill and Lois W., located at 182 Clinton St., Brooklyn, while the couple was in Maryland visiting Fitz M and his wife.
    Bill C. had been living with the W―—s for nearly a year and had been left in charge of the house. A brilliant lawyer from Canada, he worked for a prominent law firm by day and played bridge for money by night. The W―—s had rarely seen him and did not know him as well as they did most of their other house guests. His gambling appeared to be an even greater obsession than his drinking.

    Bill W. returned home first. Upon opening the front door, he smelled gas. In the kitchen upstairs, he found Bill’s body on the floor, with a tube from the stove’s gas jet in his mouth. He had been dead for several days. Lois arrived the following day to find that Bill had already taken care of every detail [right: Daily News article from 29 Oct].
    It took several months for the W―—s to realize that Bill had been selling their personal belongings and dress clothes, which were hung in a closet near the hallway bedroom he occupied. Among the missing items were Bill’s dress suit, his evening jacket, Lois’s black velvet evening wrap lined with white velvet, and several evening gowns. Suitcases were also missing. These were the remnants of the W―—s’ once affluent lifestyle. His remorse for these thefts may have contributed to Bill’s decision to take his own life.

In 1940, Doherty “Dohr” S. [left], a retired local businessman, Irish Catholic, and devoutly religious, founded the first A.A. group in Indianapolis, Indiana. Desperate to stop drinking, Dohr had reached out to the Cleveland group for help. In response, Clarence S. had sent Irwin M. to make a 12th-step call on Dohr and guide him in starting an A.A. group.

In 1988, sociologist Milton A. Maxwell [right], PhD, 81, died. He had served as a Class A (non-alcoholic) Trustee on the General Service Board from 1971 to 1982, including the last four years as Chairman. Also, he had been an original member of the Trustees’ Archives Committee.

Today in A.A. History—October 27-31

In 2024, the 28th biennial World Service Meeting was held at the Westin at Times Square Hotel in New York City [left: Final Report cover]. The meeting’s theme was “The Three Legacies in the Digital Era: Our Great Responsibility to the Alcoholic Being Born Today.” Seventy-four delegates from forty-nine General Service structures were represented:

Argentina	Australia	Belgium (Dutch-Speaking)	Bolivia	Bulgaria	Brazil	Central America/Southern Zone
Chile	Colombia	Czech Republic	Denmark	Dominican Republic	Ecuador	Finland
French-Speaking Europe	German-Speaking Europe	Great Britain	Greece	Guatemala	Honduras	Hong Kong
Hungary	Iceland	India	Iran	Ireland	Italy	Japan
Latvia	Lithuania	Mexico	Netherlands	New Zealand	Norway	Paraguay
Peru	Poland	Portugal	Romania	Russia	Slovakia	Slovenia
South Africa	Spain	Sweden	Turkey	U.S./Canada	Uruguay	Venezuela

October 26 in A.A. History

In 1937, Dr. Leonard V. Strong [near right], brother-in-law of Bill W. [middle right], married to Bill’s sister Dorothy, wrote him a letter introducing Bill to Rev. Williard S. Richardson [far right]:

Dear Mr. Richardson,
    This will serve to introduce my brother-in-law, Mr. William W—–, of whom I spoke in our telephone conversation yesterday.
    His work with alcoholics appears very effective and I think merits your interest and possibly that of the Rockefeller Foundation.
Your courtesy in seeing him is greatly appreciated by me, and I regret my inability to be present.

    Bill would meet Richardson shortly afterward in his 56th-floor office in the RCA building. Richardson was warmly cordial; Bill described him as “an elderly gentleman who had twinkling eyes set in one of the finest faces I have ever seen.” He showed deep interest as Bill shared his own story and that of the struggling Fellowship.

In 1939 , the Cleveland Plain Dealer (Ohio) published the final article [left] in Elrick B. Davis’s five-part series titled “Alcoholics Anonymous Makes Its Stand Here.” It read, in part,

    It is hard for the skeptical to believe that no one yet has found a way to muscle into Alcoholics Anonymous, the informal society of ex-drunks that exists only to cure each other, and make a money-making scheme of it. Or that someone will not. 
    The complete informality of the society seems to be what has saved it from that. Members pay no dues. The society has no paid staff. Parties are “Dutch.” Meetings are held at the homes of members who have houses large enough for such gatherings, or in homes of persons who may not be alcoholics but are sympathetic with the movement.

			In 1939, the Alcoholic Foundation in New York City, presumably Ruth Hock [far left], wrote a letter to John “Fitz” M. [middle left], a “loner” living in Washington, DC. The letter referred another Washington “loner,” Hardin C. [near left?], to Fitz. Within days, the Washington Group of A.A., the first in that city, will be established out of the contact between these two men.

October 25 in A.A. History

In 1939, the Cleveland Plain Dealer (Ohio) published the fourth article [right] in Elrick B. Davis’s five-part series titled “Alcoholics Anonymous Makes Its Stand Here.” It read, in part,

    What gets the pathological drinker who finally has reached such state that he is willing to listen to a cured rummy member of Alcoholics Anonymous, is that the retrieved alcoholic not only understands what only another alcoholic can understand, but a great deal that the unreformed drunk thinks no one else could know because he has never told anyone, and his difficulties or escapades must be private to his own history.
    Fact is the history of all alcoholics is the same; some have been addicts longer than others, and some have painted brighter red patches around the town — that is all. What they have heard in the “cure” hospitals they have frequented, or from the psychoanalysts they have consulted, or the physicians who have tapered them off one bender or another at home, has 
has convinced them that alcoholism is a disease. But they are sure (a) that their version of the disease differs from everyone else’s and (b) that in them it hasn’t reached the incurable stage anyway.…
    He presents his excuses to the retrieved alcoholic who has come to talk. Can’t sleep without liquor. Worry. Business troubles. Debt. Alimentary pains. Overwork. Nerves too high strung. Grief. Disappointment. Deep dark phobic fears. Fatigue. Family difficulties. Loneliness.
    The catalog has got no farther than that when the member of Alcoholics Anonymous begins rattling off an additional list.
    “Hogwash,” he says. “Don’t try those alibis on me. I have used them all myself.”

October 24 in A.A. History

In 1939, the Cleveland Plain Dealer (Ohio) published the third article [right] in Elrick B. Davis's five-part series, “Alcoholics Anonymous Makes Its Stand Here.” It read, in part,

    The ex-drunks cured of their medically incurable alcoholism by membership in Alcoholic Anonymous, know that the way to keep themselves from backsliding is to find another pathological alcoholic to help. Or to start a new man toward cure. That is the way that the Akron chapter of the society, and from that, the Cleveland fellowship was begun.
    One of the earliest of the cured rummies had talked a New York securities house into taking a chance that he was really through with liquor. He was commissioned to do a stock promotion chore in Akron. If he should succeed, his economic troubles also would be cured. Years of alcoholism had left him bankrupt as well as a physical and social wreck before Alcoholics Anonymous had saved him.
    His Akron project failed. Here he was on a Saturday afternoon in a strange hotel in a town where he did not know a soul, business hopes blasted, and with scarcely money enough to get him back to New York with a report that would leave him without the last job he knew of for him in the world. If ever disappointment deserved drowning, that seemed the time. 

	In 1943, Bill and Lois W. [left] left home for their first major A.A. tour. Bill called it their “trip to the coast” and they stopped in at least three places: Los Angeles, California; Portland, Oregon, where they “looked in on Doc H., an Oregon chiropractor who was struggling with the alkies in Portland;” and Seattle, Washington, where they “first met businessman Dale A. [right], who with real valor was trying hard to hold a small band together.”

    Bill and Lois returned home 87 days later, on January 19.

In 1973, the newly created Trustee’s Archives Committee held its first meeting. The committee consisted of alcoholic (Class B) General Service Trustee George G. as chair, two non-alcoholic (Class A) Trustees—Rev. Lee Archer Belford and Dr. Milton A. Maxwell—and Archivist Nell Wing, who had been appointed A.A.’s first Archivist in the year before.

October 23 in A.A. History

In 1939, the Cleveland Plain Dealer (Ohio) published the second article [right] in Elrick B. Davis’s series of five, titled “Alcoholics Anonymous Makes Its Stand Here.” It read, in part,

    There is no blinking the fact that Alcoholics Anonymous, the amazing society of ex-drunks who have cured each other of an incurable disease, is religious. Its members have cured each other frankly with the help of God. Every cured member of the Cleveland Fellowship of the society, like every cured member of the other chapters now established in Akron, New York, and elsewhere in the country, is cured with the admission that he submitted his plight wholeheartedly to a Power Greater than Himself.

In 1940, Dr. Gilbert “Gib” K., a dentist in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, reached out to the Alcoholic Foundation in New York City for help, becoming the first alcoholic contact in that city.
Gentlemen,

    Recently there has been called to my attention an article which appeared in the May 17, 1940 issue of the “Green Sheet” of the Milwaukee Journal that interests me very much. Several lengthy columns are there devoted to a general description of your unique attack, or rather approach, in the direction: “alcoholism.” Since the common sense method employed by your “Foundation” seems more nearly to solve my own personal problem than any other I have heard of, I am moved to write you for a little further information. Is there an active group or “chapter” located here in Milwaukee whom I might contact? If not, any other details you may wish to offer me will be greatly appreciated.

    In December, the Foundation replied that there was “no A.A. Fellowship in Milwaukee or its immediate vicinity; the closest to you being located at Madison, Wisconsin or Chicago, Illinois.” They invited him to write again if he wanted contact information.

October 22 in A.A. History

In 1939, the first public meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous in New Jersey took place at the South Orange Community Center [right]. Gordon MacD., a newcomer with only five months of sobriety, along with Herb D., had arranged for the meeting space to accommodate the growing New Jersey Group, which then had between twenty-five and thirty members attending its meetings. The meeting was held on a Sunday evening at 5:30 PM and marked the beginning of regular Sunday night meetings at the Community Center. This group, the New Jersey Group, would eventually become the “mother group” for all of New Jersey and later be known as the South Orange Sunday Night Group.

In 1963, alcoholism educator and friend of Alcoholics Anonymous, Elvin Morton “Bunky” Jellinek [left], better known as E. M. Jellinek, died of a heart attack at his desk at Stanford University at the age of 72. Jellinek coined the phrase “disease concept of alcoholism” and significantly advanced the movement towards the medicalization of drunkenness and alcohol habituation. His initial study in 1946 was funded by A.A. members Marty M. and R. Brinkley S.

    According to a 1998 study by Mariana Valverde [right], Jellinek’s study was based on a narrow, selective study of a hand-picked group of AA members who had returned a self-reporting questionnaire. Valverde noted that the study’s findings were only relevant to “the experience of white, male, middle-class alcoholics in the 1940s.” Valverde also opined that a biostatistician of Jellinek’s eminence would have been well aware of the “unscientific status” of the “dubiously scientific data that had been collected by A.A. members.”