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.”