March 29 in A.A. History

In 1939, taking the copy of the multilith manuscript of the Big Book with all the handwritten edits, Hank P. [near right] drove with Bill W. [center right, 1937] and Ruth Hock [far right] 60 miles north from New York City to Cornwall, New York, where the book was to be printed by Cornwall Press [left, early 1900s]. They all went, as Ruth later explained, because “we couldn’t afford anyone to correct the pages as they came off [the press, and] edit them…” It’s also true that no one but these three could have done the job.

    Dorothy Wright S. [right]—wife of Clarence S., who started Alcoholics Anonymous in Cleveland, Ohio—joined them on this trip; Ruth said that she was already in town visiting her sister. Dorothy had called Bill, who invited her to meet them in Cornwall, which she did. The four of them spent the day working on corrections, shared dinner, and then retired to three hotel rooms at the Cornwall Inn [left].

    Ruth and Dorothy “immediately developed a perfect rapport,” which was fortunate since they shared the third room, which had a large double bed. They “were talking, and talking, and talking” until about 1:30 or 2:00 in the morning when they heard a knock on their door. It was Bill, who couldn’t sleep. The three of them spent the rest of the night talking, with Bill positioned between the two women. It was all very innocent, and Ruth later wrote to Bill that it was “one of the most satisfying and joyous memories of my life.… How wicked that sounds, but how innocent and wonderful it really was.” Bill agreed, calling it “one of my precious moments.”

In 1943, the Charleston Daily Mail reported that Bill W. spoke at St. John’s Parish House, which may have been the first A.A. meeting in West Virginia, established in March 1942 by Irwin “Irv” M.

---

Note 1: The Parish House may be associated with St. John’s Episcopal Church, located at 1105 Quarrier St. in Charleston [right, c. 1972], built in 1884. The Parish House was designed as an expansion in 1927, with construction beginning in 1928.
Note 2: Rule 62 originated with one of Charleston’s groups.

March 28 in A.A. History

In 1945, Variety published “Alcoholics Anonymous Doing Great Job in Its New Times Square Clubhouse” [right: highlighted story on pp. 1, 19], which began:

Alcoholics Anonymous has come to Broadway. The organization that has helped life 12,000 drunks onto the water wagon, many of them straight from the gutter, is now established in a new clubhouse on West 41st street, a few minutes from Times Sq.

This article was later condensed and republished by The Catholic Digest (Vol. 9, No. 7, May 1945, pp. 79-80).

In 1946, Newly sober John “Captain Jack” S. [left: as a young man], skipper of a Socony-Vacuum oil tanker, wrote to the Alcoholic Foundation’s General Service Office (G.S.O.) in New York City, requesting contact information for some member of Alcoholics Anonymous. He explained he was “… still at sea on oil tankers, on which I have served for ten years. I have few contacts ashore with A.A., and have to rely on the Book and the guy upstairs.”
    A G.S.O. staff member responded by providing Captain Jack with the names of A.A. contacts in port cities and encouraged him to reach out to other seagoing members, which he did. This marked the beginning of The Internationalists in A.A.

March 27 in A.A. History

In 1940, Dave W. of Seattle, Washington [right: aerial view, 1939], had read about Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.) and John D. Rockefeller Jr.’s interest in the organization. He wrote to Rockefeller, who had forwarded his letter to the Alcoholic Foundation in New York City. In his letter, Dave mentioned that he had stopped drinking three years earlier, had a strong faith in God, and had attempted to help others quit drinking, though without success. He seemed particularly interested in assisting those struggling with alcoholism. The Alcoholic Foundation responded by mail on 16 April 1940. Dave would go on to become one of the three founding members of the first A.A. group in Seattle.

In 1942, Irwin “Irv” Meyerson’s wife wrote to Clarence S. from Knoxville, Tennessee, stating that “Irwin started another club in Charleston, W. Va.”
    Irv [left] had gotten sober in Cleveland, Ohio and Clarence was his sponsor. Irv himself had already written the Alcoholic Foundation in New York City that three alcoholics—“Bill” S., George S. and Louis J.—were forming what would be West Virginia’s first Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.) group in Charleston. Separately, Bill S. had written to National Secretary Bobbie B. at the Foundation and said that Irv was recognized as the “sponsor” of that first Charleston Group.

In 1960, the weekly half-hour radio program, The Catholic Hour, aired Part II of “Alcoholism: The Problem and the Hope”, featuring Marty M. [right, 1964], along with an unnamed staff member from the General Service Office.

March in A.A. History, day unknown

In 1940, Mort J. [right] had bought the book Alcoholics Anonymous in September 1939 and tossed it into his suitcase without even glancing at it. He had then embarked on a multi-week spree, traveling from Denver, Colorado, to California, through Arizona, and into Nogales, Guaymas, and Hermosillo in Mexico, ultimately arriving in Palm Springs.
    There, he had regained consciousness and discovered the book in his luggage. “Shaking violently,” he began to read it. From that day in November 1939, he never drank again.
    In Los Angeles, he contacted the Alcoholic Foundation, and Ruth Hock provided him with the phone number and address of Kaye Miller, a non-alcoholic who had been the driving force behind the first A.A. meeting and group in Los Angeles.
    Mort called on Kaye at her home and asked, “Where's the meeting?”
    “There are no meetings anymore,” Kaye replied. “I’m disgusted. I’m going to Hawaii or Europe.”
    “Where are all the members of A. A?”
    “They are all drunk,” she said bitterly.
    “Do you have any names for me? I want to get in touch with some alcoholics in town.”
    “You’re wasting your time.”
    She had cleaned out her apartment and thrown all the names of prospects and letters of inquiry into a wastebasket. Mort picked them out of the trash, pocketed them, and then left.
    Kaye’s last words to him were, “Don’t waste your time on them. I’ve called on them all. They can’t stay sober.”
    As Mort walked home, he sifted through the contacts and letters he had taken from Kaye. He found the address of Cliff W, whose wife had written to A.A. in New York for help after reading about the organization in the syndicated column of Beatrice Fairfax, the “Dear Abby” of that era.

    He went to Cliff’s house  [left: 4222 Vantage Ave, Studio City, likely his home in 1940] and rang the doorbell. Cliff opened the door.
    “My name is Mort J. I’m a member of Alcoholics Anonymous; may I come in?”

    Cliff let him in. Mort explained his dire need to share his story with somebody, anybody, in order to stay sober. Cliff listened to Mort’s story, despite having no desire to stop drinking or attend A.A.meetings. However, was spellbound as Mort recounted the story of his last roaring drunk. Mort explained that, as he understood it, he could not stay sober unless he carried the message to other alcoholics. Would Cliff come to a meeting? Could he help organize one?
    Cliff liked Mort, and more as a favor to him, to help him stay sober, he agreed to help.

   Years later, after he had joined A.A. himself, Cliff reflected, “I had no desire to join Alcoholics Anonymous. But I had to see Mort again. He attracted me. And years later, when Bill W. came out with the 11th tradition, I realized how true it was when he said A.A. is a program of attraction rather than promotion.”

    Looking for a meeting place, Mort contacted Dr. Ethel Leonard, who worked with alcoholics and happened to be the house physician at the Hotel Cecil [right, c. 1928] on Main St. in Los Angeles, California. Through Dr. Leonard’s assistance, Mort rented a large room on the mezzanine for $5.00 [~$113 in 2025]. This was the first public meeting of A.A. in Los Angeles, held on a Friday at 8 p.m. in March 1940. It was open to anyone who desired to stop drinking. Ted LeBerthon, a columnist for the Los Angeles Daily News, wrote about the meeting in his column, noting that it was held in the heart of Skid Row.
    “I chose this location,” Mort J. later recalled, “because the price was right, and there was a good psychological reason for holding a meeting down there because I knew it would show us where we were headed unless we did something about it—that was our destination, Skid Row, the drunk tank, sleeping in the alleys and under the bridges, winos, dead men…”
    Besides Mort and Cliff, about 10 other men attended—men who had failed to sober up at Johnny Howe’s classes or Kaye Miller’s meetings earlier that year. Mort urged them to give A.A. another chance.
    Mort didn’t know how to run an A.A. meeting. There was no coffee, no doughnuts; all he had was his copy of Alcoholics Anonymous. He opened the meeting by stating that he had not had a drink in five months. He asked if anyone would read a few pages. When no one volunteered, Mort opened the book to Chapter 5 and began reading, “Rarely have we seen a person fail…”
    Thus began the practice of reading a portion of Chapter 5 at the beginning of the meeting, which eventually spread throughout much of A.A.

March 25 in A.A. History

In 1940, the Los Angeles, California, Daily News published Ted Berthon’s syndicated column “Night and Day,” which, on this Easter Day, provided a glowing report about an organization he had recently discovered: Alcoholics Anonymous. Here is an excerpt:

     It seems that “Alcoholics Anonymous” got under way originally through the Oxford movement, i.e., the modern Buchmanite movement, but is now detached and independent. Not long ago John D. Rockefeller underwrote the publication of a huge, well written book called “Alcoholics Anonymous.” All public libraries now have long waiting lists for it. The organization “Alcoholics Anonymous” exists in virtually every major American city—without either officers or offices, dues or rituals, halls or funds.

In 1965, Richmond W. [left], 72, died in Daytona Beach, Florida, with 22 years of sobriety. He remains the second best-selling early A.A. author, after Bill W., having published several influential works, including For Drunks Only: One Man’s Reactions to Alcoholics Anonymous (1945), Twenty-Four Hours a Day (1948), and The 7 Points of Alcoholics Anonymous (1989). In 1958 (or 1959), he shared his thoughts on life and death in a lead he gave in Rutland, Vermont:

My problem, in what is left of my life, is to keep my mind or intelligence in the proper condition—by living with honesty, purity, unselfishness,  love, and service—so that when my time comes to go, my passing to a greater sphere of mind will be gentle and easy.

In 2005, Nancy O. [right], founder of the AA History Lovers (AAHL) email list, died.
    Shortly after completing her book, With a Lot of Help from Our Friends: The Politics of Alcoholism, in 2003, she suffered a series of small silent heart attacks that left her heart severely weakened. She then moved to Fredricksburg, Virginia, to be loser to her family. In July 2004, she was hospitalized with congestive heart failure and was given only a few months to live. Despite this prognosis, Nancy remained active until the end of her life, speaking to various groups in New York City, Washington, D.C., New Orleans, Louisiana, and, as one of the great thrills of her life, at an A.A. history conference in Bristol, England, where she showcased a pre-publication copy of her book. She was buried at Fern Knoll Burial Park in Dallas, Pennsylvania.
    Her AAHL co-moderator, Glenn Chestnut, created a two-part memorial for her, which can be viewed online by visiting “web.archive.org” and searching for the URL “http://hindsfoot.org/nomem1.html”.

March 24 in A.A. History

In 1939, as the writing of the Big Book (Alcoholics Anonymous) neared completion, Hank P. [near right] wrote Bill W. [far right, 1937] a 1½-page memo addressing Bill’s reluctance to make certain editorial changes^*:

  Dogmatic;  Marked by positive and authoritative assertions. As “shown by God.”
  Doctor Howards [sic] position is that Mr. Wilson should not let himself be put in a position of being dogmatic  anywhere in the book. That instead of saying to any person . . . ”You do this or You do that.” . . . the whole attitude should be we did this or we did that and received certain blessings from God[…]
  My personal opinion is as follows: EVERY personality should be laid aside[…] Therefor [sic] Bill should take the book someplace where he can study it quietly with the attitude of taking from it <handwritten>changing</handwritten> any dogmatic statements or insinuations.[…] Simply to change it where necessary from . . . You do this . . . to . . . we did this. At the same time certain men such as Frank Amos, Harry B———, Jack D———, Doc. S———, Horace C———, Paul K——— and any others who might be suggested should <handwritten>could</handwritten> do the same thing. Then a meeting sh<handwritten>c</handwritten>ould be called for final discussion of these points and any changes made where this seemed right.[…]
To bring this proposal down to concrete few words.
A committee to study the book to ▓▓▓▓▓▓ change any “ You do this [sic] or [sic] you must do that [sic] statements or insinuations to, “ We did this [sic] or [sic] we did that.”
Then at a meeting to decide [sic] by the vote of the majority the changes. ANY people who desire and will spend the necessary time to be able [sic] to serve on such a committee.

---

^* The following excerpts include Hank’s errors; my notations are in red. “could <handwritten>should</handwritten>” indicates that Hank drew a line through “could” and hand-wrote “should” above above it.

In 1971, Margaret (or Margarita) Von Lüttichau Marbury [left, 1915] died in Washington, D.C.
    In the September 2020 issue of The Journal of Analytical Psychology, the article “Margarita Von Lüttichau: Intermediary between Jung and Bill W[—–]” by Ian McCabe, Christine Boyd, and Pádraig Carroll claimed that

Her contribution within this mediator role [i.e, between Carl Jung and Bill W.] has not been previously recognized but is an important factor in explaining how Jung became introduced to the AA 12‐step format and validated the effectiveness of group work. After the Second World War, Von Lüttichau travelled between America and Switzerland and introduced the writings and ideas of Wilson and Jung to each other and acted as an intermediary between both titans. Jung gave Von Lüttichau extraordinarily detailed instructions on how the 12‐step programme of AA could be applied to ‘general neurotics’. Von Lüttichau’s private papers provide a bridge between Jung and Wilson’s correspondence and help to piece together gaps in both Jungian and AA history.

March 23 in A.A. History

In 1898, James “Jimmy” B. [right] was born in Baltimore, Maryland, to Nellie C. and Robert B. He was introduced to Alcoholics Anonymous in 1938 but slipped for about a week a few months later. After returning to A.A., he remained continuously sober for the rest of his life. His story, “The Vicious Cycle”, appears in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th edi­tions of the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous.

In 1936, Bill and Lois W. visited John Fitzhugh “Fitz” [left] and Elizabeth Gwathmey M. in Cumberstone, Maryland. Bill’s intellectual and scholarly qualities provided common ground with Fitz, and like Fitz, Bill was a dreamer. They became devoted friends of the Ms. Lois remarked that she and Bill had “practically commuted” to the M.’s home, while Fitz often visited them in Brooklyn, New York. He frequently attended the Tuesday night meetings at the W.s’ home in Brooklyn. Lois described Fitz as an “impractical, lovable dreamer.” Fitz’s story “Our Southern Friend” appears in all four editions of Alcoholics Anonymous.

In 1941, Sybil M. [right] got sober in Los Angeles, California, becoming the first woman to join A.A. west of the Mississippi River. Her story, “Learning to Fly,” was published in the February 1982 issue of the A.A. Grapevine.
    In 1939, she had read the Liberty magazine article “Alcoholics and God.” Though fascinated, she did nothing. Eighteen months later, she read Jack Alexander’s article about A.A. in the 1 March 1941 issue of The Saturday Evening Post. She wrote to the Alcoholic Foundation in New York City and received a reply from Ruth Hock, who informed her that there were no women members in California but that Marty Mann was sober in New York. Ruth referred her to a small group of men in the area.
    Her non-alcoholic husband took her to that group, where they found 10 to 12 men around a table and 3 to 4 women against the wall. The chairman began the meeting by announcing, “As is our custom before the regular meeting starts, we have to ask the women to leave.” Sybil left with the other women, while her husband stayed, leading the members to assume he was the alcoholic. When he rejoined Sybil, he said, “They don’t know you’re alive. They just went on and on bragging about their drinking until I was about to walk out, when they jumped up and said the Lord’s Prayer, and here I am.” Sybil then headed for the nearest bar and got drunk.
    However, she remembered that Ruth Hock had written, “If you need help, call Cliff W. [left],” and had given her his phone number. When she called, he explained, “You didn’t tell us you were an alcoholic. We thought you were one of the wives. If you had identified yourself as an alcoholic, you would have been welcome as the flowers in May.” Sybil returned the following week and became the group’s only woman.
    Frank R. brought in a large carton of letters, bundled into groups of twenty to fifty. They were all inquiries and calls for help from people in Southern California. “Here they are! Here they are! If any of you jokers have been sober over fifteen minutes, come on up here and get these letters. We’ve got to get as many of these drunks as we can in here by next Friday, or they may die.” The last bundle contained letters from women. Frank called out, “Sybil Maxwell, come on up. I am going to put you in charge of all the women.”
    Sybil liked the idea of “being in charge” but replied, “I can’t, sir. You said I have to make all those calls by next Friday, or somebody might die. Well, I’ll be drunk by next Friday unless you have some magic that will change everything so I can stay sober.” Frank replied that everything she needed to know was in the Big Book, “and it says right in here that when all other measures fail, working with another alcoholic will save the day. That’s what you will be doing, Sybil, working with other alcoholics. You just get in your car and take your mind off yourself. Think about someone sicker than you are. Go see her and hand her the letter she wrote, and say: ‘I wrote one like this last week, and they answered mine and told me to come and see you. If you have a drinking problem like I have, and if you want to get sober as bad as I do, you come with me, and we’ll find out together how to do it.’ Don’t add another word to that, because you don’t know anything yet. Just go get ’em.”
    It worked, and she never had another drink.

In 1995, seventeen years after Bob P. of New Zealand conceived the idea for a zonal meeting serving Asian and Pacific Island A.A. groups, the first Asia/Oceania Service Meeting (AOSM) was held in Tokyo, Japan. Its purpose was to provide an opportunity for countries in the same geographical area to come together and share experiences, similar to a mini-World Service Meeting. The theme was “Twelfth Stepping Your Neighbor Country.” Representatives from five Asia-Oceania countries attended: Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, and Vanuatu. Australia, despite being in the region, did not attend this first meeting due to financial constraints. There were also four non-member observers present. Bob chaired the meeting, and George D., General Manager of the General Service Office in New York City, was the keynote speaker.

March 22 in A.A. History

In 1951, Dr. William Silkworth, 77, died at his home, 45 W. 81st St., New York City, from coronary occlusion, a condition characterized by the partial or complete blockage of blood flow in an artery that supplies blood to the heart. In their later years, he and his wife, Marie [right, together in front of their home in New Jersey], had left New Jersey to live in Manhattan.

In 1984, Clarence S. [left], 81, died at home in Casselberry, Florida, from lung cancer. He was 46 years sober. Clarence was the founder of Cleveland A.A., the creator of the sponsorship concept as we know it today, and the author of “Home Brewmeister” in the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd editions of the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous.

March 21 in A.A. History

In 1881, Anne Ripley [right, 1915], Dr. Bob S.’s future wife, was born in Oak Park, Illinois. She was the only daughter and the oldest of four children, her brothers being Paul, Charles, and Joseph. Dr. Bob once said of her, “For some reason, we alcoholics seem to have the gift of picking out the world’s finest women.” Bill W. referred to her as a “founder” of A.A. and “the mother of our first group in Akron [Ohio].” He described her as a woman who possessed a deep faith in God and an unwavering love for those who suffer.

In 1913, a memorial service for Bertha Bamford, who had died in November 1912 and was Bill W.’s high school love, was held in the chapel at Burr and Barton Seminary by the YMCA and YWCA associations of the school (Bill was president of the former, while Bertha had been president of the latter). A short article [left] on page 2 of The Bennington Evening Banner stated, “Many glowing tributes were paid to Miss Bamford’s memory by students of the upper classes and teachers.”

In 1915, Frederick Harold “Hal” M. was born in McDowell, North Carolina, the first child of Fred Harold and Louise Emma Clarke M. He sobered up in 1964 and became known as “Dr. Gratitude” for the custom “Attitude of Gratitude” pins he designed and gave to members.

In 1966, Edwin “Ebby” T. [right], from the last photo taken of him], the man Bill W. called his sponsor, died sober. He spent the last two years of his life at McPike’s Farm on Peaceable Street, a pioneering treatment facility for alcoholics located in Galway, New York, just 25 miles north of his hometown, Albany. Ebby’s caretakers believed he had given up after the death of his dear brother, Ken, in January 1966. Although he fell ill, Ebby resisted going to the hospital until he seemed to realize it was the end. “Well, we all have to go sometime,” he admitted before suffering an apparent stroke. He was rushed to a nearby hospital in Ballston Spa, but by Sunday night, he was in a coma. Ebby died of a stroke (cerebral thrombosis) at 1:00 a.m. on Monday and was later buried in Albany Rural Cemetery.

March 20 in A.A. History

In 1960, the weekly half-hour radio program, The Catholic Hour, aired Part I of “Alcoholism: The Problem and the Hope” with Marty M. [right, 1964] and an unnamed staff member from the General Service Office.

In 1961, having written to Dr. Carl G. Jung on 23 January and received a reply dated 20 January [left: these two letters], Bill W. wrote a second letter to Jung:

    Your observation that drinking motivations often include that of a quest for spiritual values caught our special interest.… Years ago, some of us read with great benefit your book entitled Modern Man in Search of a Soul. You observed, in effect, that most persons having arrived at age 40 and having acquired no conclusions or faith as to who they were, or where they were or where they were going next in the cosmos, would be bound to encounter increasing neurotic difficulties; and that this would be likely to occur whether their youthful aspirations for sex union, security, and a satisfactory place in society had been satisfied or not. Neither could any amount of resolution, philosophical speculation, or superficial religious conditioning save them from the dilemma in which they found themselves.

    Bill also remarked that Jung’s words “really carried authority, because you seemed to be neither wholly a theologian nor a pure scientist,” and he observed that Jung “spoke a language of the heart that we could understand.”
    He further wrote about his experiences with LSD, noting that many members of A.A.…

    have returned to the churches, almost always with fine results. But some of us have taken less orthodox paths. Along with a number of friends, I find myself among the later.

    Bill cited the Canadian research of Humphry Osmond, the man who introduced Huxley to mescaline in 1953. Osmond reported that 150 hardcore alcoholics were “preconditioned by LSD and then placed in the surrounding AA groups.” Over three years, they achieved “startling results” compared to similar individuals who were not treated with psychedelics but only participated in A.A. “My friends believe that LSD temporarily triggers a change in blood chemistry that inhibits or reduces ego thereby enabling more reality to be felt and seen,” Bill told Jung.
    “Some of my AA friends and I have taken the material (LSD) frequently and with much benefit,” he added, noting that the powerful psychedelic drug ignites “a great broadening and deepening and heightening of consciousness.”
    Bill informed Jung that his first LSD trip in 1956 reminded him of a mystical revelation he had experienced after hitting rock bottom in the 1930s and ending up in a New York City hospital ward for hardcore alcoholics. “My original spontaneous spiritual experience of twenty-five years before was enacted with wonderful splendor and conviction,” he wrote.
    He received no reply from Jung, who suffered a stroke just days after receiving the letter. Aniela Jaffé, a Jungian analyst and colleague of Jung, responded to Wilson on May 29, 1961, stating, “… as soon as Dr. Jung feels better and has enough strength to begin again his mail, I will show it to him.” Jung died a week later.

March in A.A. History, day unknown

Origins of A.A. in Barbados: Information about the beginnings of Alcoholics Anonymous in Barbados has been imprecise and often contradictory. The "founder" has been reported as either a Californian or a Canadian.
    The most reliable accounts suggest that in the early 1960s, an American named Ed A. from San Diego, California, who had previously been exposed to A.A. in the U.S., was living and working in Bridgetown, Barbados. Ed, a former professional tennis player, often worked as an umpire at local tournaments and was a member of the exclusive Barbados Yacht Club, which was restricted to white members. He struggled to stay sober, threatening his job.

    In March 1962, Ed visited the offices of the Advocate, Barbados’s principal newspaper [right: front page, Dec 1966]. He met with Ian Gale, the editor, expressing his interest in raising awareness about alcohol-related issues and suggesting a notice or column on alcohol abuse. He indicated that Barbados needed an A.A. program. Mr. Gale referred Ed to journalist Tony V., known for his heavy drinking and previously advised to reduce his alcohol consumption.
    In their first conversation, Ed requested that someone write an article on alcohol abuse in Barbados, including statistics, and expressed his desire to start an A.A. program.

    As a result, Mr. Smith the Headmaster of St. Matthias Boys School in Christ Church, was contacted. He agreed to provide a meeting place for the first regular A.A. group in Barbados, in the annex of St. Matthias Church [left: late 1800s, c. 1965]. A donation of $3 was given weekly to the sexton for opening and closing the church. Early members included Ed A., Tony V., Robert, Cyrus, and Bert E.
    Despite claiming to have brought A.A. to Barbados, Ed A. struggled to maintain sobriety. After umpiring a tennis match at Bachelors’ Hall, St. James, he drunkenly announced he was the President of A.A. in Barbados.
    Bert, a salesman, got sober but relapsed when his pigeons won a competition. He later sobered up again and became a committed A.A. member.

March 18 in A.A. History

In 1905, Clinton T. “Duke” P. was born in Omaha, Nebraska, to George W. and Frances Thompson P. In 1918, the family moved to Kansas City, Missouri. Duke graduated from the University of Missouri in 1926 and from the Kansas City School of Law in 1932, the same year he married Catherine “Katie” Northern.

    In 1938, Duke was introduced to Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.) by Charles “C.J.” K. and Eddie B., and was admitted to Akron City Hospital in Akron, Ohio, with “acute gastritis.” It was there that he sobered up and was visited by members of the Akron A.A. Group. Dr Bob S. became his sponsor. In 1940, Duke led the first A.A. meeting at 2222 Maumee Rd. [upper right: house; lower right: aerial view with house at lower left] in Toledo, Ohio.

    Duke served in the U.S. Army from 1942 to 1945, continuing his service in the Army Reserve before retiring as a Lieutenant Colonel. He then became a distinguished salesman for Proctor & Gamble. In 1988, Duke and Katie moved to Jacksonville, Florida, where they lived out the rest of their lives.

In 1947, the Dallas (Texas) Central Office opened and held its first Board meeting, even though there were only two A.A. groups in the area. The Central Office was located on Akard Street in the Davis Building [left, c. 1931]. It was a musty old office and a little cluttered.

    Dick P. was the director. He suffered physically from a Jamaica Ginger [right] poisoning^* during Prohibition, but that didn’t stop him from answering the phone, coordinating 12th-Step calls, or sharing with a friend or stranger over a cup of coffee. He even sold some literature.
    The location of the office would change a few times over the next several years, but always stay in the Downtown Dallas area.

---

^*Prohibition Era Jamaica Ginger was usually homemade or produced illegally, made with available ingredients, resulting in varied quality and potency. Homemade versions often included fresh ginger, sugar, water, and high-proof alcohol like moonshine. The quality and safety of such bootlegged Jamaica Ginger were questionable, with risks of contamination or harmful ingredients. Despite these risks, ginger liqueurs remained popular during Prohibition, often used in cocktails to mask harsh flavors of low-quality alcohol.

In 1951, Cliff W., [left] who had gotten sober in 1941 in Los Angeles, California, was elected as the first Southern California Delegate to the General Service Conference. Before getting sober, in March 1940, Cliff had invited a stranger who knocked on his door into his home. The man, Mort J., [below right] had just left the residence of Kaye Miller, a non-alcoholic who had been trying to start and sustain A.A. meetings in Los Angeles, but who was giving up and moving to Hawai'i. Cliff’s name and address, originally submitted by his wife, were among the leads Mort had retrieved from Kaye’s wastebasket. Mort had expressed a desperate need to talk to someone about his alcoholism to help him stay sober. Although Cliff had no interest in quitting drinking at that time, he felt sympathy for Mort and agreed to listen.

Supporting A.A. in Ukraine

[Note that this post was written in March 2022, shortly after the full-scale invasion of the Ukraine by the Russian Federation.]

An A.A. friend sent me a very well-done flyer for an online A.A. meeting in Kyiv, Ukraine. It's shown to the left, but I've removed the Meeting ID and Passcode; I don't want to make it that  easy to attend. When I first saw it, I thought, "I only wish that we could do something similar for all the Russian alcoholics, who must also be terribly distressed at this time" (especially those in the Russian military).

This flyer was immediately followed by a less well-done message, shown below, purporting to be from "Ukrainian AA Service Center and the Ukrainian AA Service Board" to "the AA World Community." I was skeptical. This looked so much like a myth that I expected to find it debunked at Snopes ("the internet’s definitive fact-checking resource"). I did not. But I did find an article titled, "UKRAINE: New Crisis, Grimly Familiar Disinformation Trends", which said, in part, 

It is a grim measure of the frequency of crisis events in recent years, and the ubiquity of online disinformation, that when a major story breaks — a terrorist attack, a mass shooting, or an act of war — the writers and editors at Snopes can typically predict what comes next. Recycled videos and photographs, stripped from their proper context, and the same old tropes, all designed to inflame or confuse, or even amuse, the reader.

This is followed by a "grim overview of the familiar disinformation trends and recurring memes… in the opening days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine."

But, as I said, I only later looked on Snopes. First I searched the Internet. To my surprise, I immediately got a hit that looked very promising. It was on the aa.lviv.ua website and looked like this:

Since I don't know what I presumed was Ukrainian, and not having much patience, I immediately had the page automatically translated into English. It is indeed Ukrainian, and here's the English translation I got:

It was only later that I noticed that an English translation of the message follows the Ukrainian on the original, one click further down. I felt stupid and impatient for not looking.

Ultimately, I decided I'd check into the Kyiv online meeting and see if there was some way I could be helpful. I tried to log in a few minutes before it was to start. Due to the meeting having reached capacity, it was impossible to get in. It then occurred to me, If I'm having this much trouble getting in, there are probably Ukrainians who are also unable to get in. It horrified me to think that I could have had a part in disrupting their meeting. If, by some miracle, I had been able to get in, I sure hope I would have realized that the meeting was at capacity and left. But even if I had, my spot would have been filled by a non-Ukrainian.

I tried joining after the meeting was over. It was bedlam. It appeared that most people were unmuted and there were multiple conversations going on at the same time. I saw one man, who appeared to be that single Ukrainian member. He appeared to be quite stressed out. I also saw some A.A.friends of mine, which was disappointing. I only stayed a minute. The last thing they needed at that point was yet one more non-Ukrainian A.A. to join the fray.

Tonight, I learned from a reliable source that only one of the seven or eight regular Ukrainian group members was able to get into the meeting (presumably, the Zoom host). No doubt, many of the attendees had good intentions, although I'm also pretty sure some did not. Clearly, many also didn't think through the consequences of their actions.

And then, very late last night, My friend said that another friend of hers had found a Facebook post about the A.A. meeting in Kyiv earlier, shown at the left. It was so disheartening to read. Yes, many non-Ukrainians—maybe hundreds of them—got to feel good for a minute. Meanwhile, seven or eight locals never got to their meeting.

God As We Understand Him?

 I recently read Bill W.'s essay, “God As We Understand Him: The Dilemma of No Faith”, in The Language of the Heart (originally published as “The Dilemma of No Faith” in the April 1961 issue of the A.A. Grapevine). He begins this essay by saying, “The phrase ‛God As We Understand Him’ is perhaps the most important expression to be found in our whole AA vocabulary.”

For a long time, I've been vaguely uncomfortable with this wording, even though I knew what it meant the first time I heard it. In the last few years, but not in my early sobriety, I've sometimes heard newcomers asking about this expression, “How can anyone understand God?”  in a way that led me to think that perhaps this was an impediment for them. I realized my discomfort is just that. Perhaps understanding is not the best word. I think “God As We Conceive of God” is closer to the intended meaning. It will be interesting to see how the proposed plain language Big Book^* (i.e., Alcoholics Anonymous) will deal with this phrase. If at all.

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^* If you don't know what this is or what it means, check out Advisory Action #28 (on p 7) in this document: Conference Advisory Actions of the 71st General Service Conference, a list of all such actions adopted at the 71st General Service Conference last April.

19,560 days

Yes, I am still sober, still above ground. My posts slowed down drastically and then stopped altogether because I feared it would become too easy to identify who I was from my posts, due to circumstances of my life. Already, my brother had figured out this was me. For those who don't realize it, I was doing my best to respect Tradition 12. My brother already knew I was a deeply involved member of A.A.

Future posts will probably be less personal, on the whole. I hope this is, at least in part, because I have less interest in myself and more interest in others [v. Alcoholics Anonymous, p 84].

A.A. in these times of pandemic has been a great experience for me personally. Since mid-March 2020, I've attended online meetings on every continent that has them (Antarctica does not, due to insufficient bandwidth). I've been regularly attending meetings all over the US and Canada, as well as in Australia and South Africa. It has also become much easier to find workshops, conventions, conferences, and meetings that focus on topics like Traditions, Concepts, The A.A. Service Manual, and A.A. history. These are topics that I love learning about. I've been sober almost 29 years, been involved in General Service for 25½ of those years, but I sometimes think I've learned more about General Service in the last 16 months than in all the time before. Maybe not. Maybe it just feels that way.

Eighteen years

Still here, still sober, even if I'm not posting. Yesterday I celebrated 18 years of continuous sobriety.