February 5 in A.A. History

In 2015, the Des Moines (Iowa) Register published an opinion piece titled “AA won’t list nonreligious group meetings” by Rekha Basu [right]. It said in part:

    [C]onspicuously absent from the Saturday meeting list posted by the AA central office in Des Moines is a group called The Broad Highway. That’s for alcoholics who want to find sobriety without necessarily having religion be part of it. The AA organization won’t list its meetings.
    No board member responded to my request for an interview. But a man answering the phone at the Des Moines central office (in accordance with AA policy, he asked that his name not be used) said it’s the position of the general service organization not to list meetings as AA meetings if they don’t take things directly out of the Big Book.…
    But as members of The Broad Highway point out, other passages from founder [Bill] W[——] say any two people can make up an AA group, with no requirement to embrace religion. The book's preamble says the only requirement is a desire to stop drinking. And a passage from W[——] published in a 1946 issue of the AA’s [sic] Grapevine says, “So long as there is the slightest interest in sobriety, the most unmoral, the most anti-social, the most critical alcoholic may gather about him a few kindred spirits and announce to us that a new Alcoholics Anonymous Group has been formed. Anti-God, anti-medicine, anti-our Recovery Program, even anti-each other — these rampant individuals are still an A.A. Group if they think so!”
    Despite the obvious intent to be inclusive, Dave W[–—] of Des Moines, a 28-year AA member, says most AA meetings emphasize not just dependence on a personal God but “a heavy emphasis on Christianity.” Many meetings open and close with the Lord’s Prayer and include Christian readings, he said. W[–—] and several other members of the chapter considers it a form of religious discrimination that drives away prospective members.