May 31 in A.A. History

In 1949, Bill W. responded [right] to a May 15th note from Ed W. [far left]. Ed had written to inform Bill that Barry C. [near left], a founder of A.A. in Minnesota, was doing much better.

     He also asked Bill to confirm that he had received the copies of The Little Red Book [right] that Ed had sent. As the primary author, Ed wanted the Alcoholic Foundation to take over its publication. Dr. Bob S. had contributed to the book, and Bill had praised it, but A.A.W.S. would not publish it because the Trustees preferred an A.A.-owned book.
    Bill wrote:

    I did receive those books.… Lois and I continue to reminisce about our pleasant visit with your group. God forbid that Alcoholics Anonymous ever become frozen or rigid in its ways of doing or thinking. Within the framework of our principles the ways are apparently legion. There is little doubt that the contributions you folks have made to our progress will always be a part of the folk lore [sic] of our well-loved fellowship.

In 1963, the Kodiak (Alaska) Mirror featured an article on page 5 titled “Local Alcoholics Anonymous Group Hears Report” [left] . It told of a representative—likely from Kodiak’s only A.A. group, the Isle of Hope Group—who attended the Alaska State A.A. Assembly in Anchorage. This representative delivered a report to local members, which included the following details:

    Methods of furthering AA’s efforts to help the alcoholic who still suffers from this disabling disease were discussed and a report was heard from Alaska’s delegate to the headquarters of Alcoholics Anonymous in New York City where the annual conference of delegates from the entire United States and the Provinces of Canada was held on April 15.

May 30 in A.A. History

In 1941, in Hartford, Connecticut [right, in early 1945] the two founding members of Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.) had their last drinks without having met or known of each other until shortly afterward.
    Hal S., from the Shaker Heights Group in Ohio, was in Hartford on business when he asked a doctor if he knew any drunks. The doctor did not, but his nurse provided Hal with the name of Harold “Red” W. Hal called Red that evening, but Red was “indisposed.” They eventually met a few days later, and Red had his last drink on May 30.

    Meanwhile, Harold H., a salesman and periodic drunk, had read Jack Alexander’s article in The Saturday Evening Post [left: cover] but was put off by the “God business” and resigned himself to remaining a drunk. Shortly after, he found himself in a hospital after being beaten up and arrested. Upon his release, he attended a party on May 30, where he encountered an old drinking buddy, Brad P., who had sobered up in the Scarsdale Group in New York. He asked Harold if he wanted to die as an alcoholic. Having witnessed a man suffer from delirium tremens (the DTs), Harold said no and never drank again.
    Not long after, Harold and Red met and began recruiting other drunks.

In 1944, in Georgia, The Atlanta Constitution published an article [right] titled “‘Bill’ [W.] Defines Alcoholic as ‘Bankrupt Idealist.’” This demonstrates that Bill used the term “bankrupt idealist” eight years before it appeared in his Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions (Tradition 6, page 156).

1964, Ebby T. arrived at McPike’s Farm [left], an innovative alcoholism treatment facility located in Galway, New York, near Saratoga Springs. Founded by Margaret and Mickey M. in the winter of 1958, the farm offered Ebby a chance to find some peace and alleviate the inner turmoil that had plagued him for much of his life. Sadly, less than two years later, he would die in a nearby hospital.

May 29 in A.A. History

In 1921, The Boston Globe (Massachusetts) published Dr. Frank Crane’s piece titled “Just for Today” [left], which has since been widely circulated in A.A. and Al-Anon. Dr. Crane [right] himself later remarked, “Bill [W.] did say we ‘borrowed.’ This time from Dr. Crane’s 1921 copyrighted material.”

In 1944, The Patriot (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania) published a column by Beatrix Fairfax, titled “Advice to the Lovelorn: ‘Alcoholics Anonymous’ Helps Make Homes Happy” [left], a column Fairfax is described as a “Famous Authority on Problems of Love and Marriage.”

In 1980, Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers [right: 1st edition, 1st printing], an authorized biography of A.A.’s co-founder and a history of early A.A. in the Midwest, was published. Niles P. was hired to write it, apparently with assistance from Barry L.; Ed N. and Ruth Hock may have also contributed.

In 2022, Elizabeth “Liz” B. [left] of Boston, Massachusetts, 100, died after 69 years and 11 months of sobriety. Originally from New York City, she was a friend of Bill W. and spoke at his 26th anniversary celebration.

May 28 in A.A. History

In 1907, Conor F. [right] was probably born in County Roscommon, Ireland. He would immigrate to the United States and get sober in 1943 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In 1946, he and Richard P. would found the first Alcoholics Anonymous group in Dublin, also the first A.A. group in Europe.

In 1974, the A.A. Fellowship in Great Britain was chosen to host the 3rd biennial A.A. World Service Meeting, making it the first time this event would be held outside the United States. A Site Committee, composed of members selected at the 2nd World Service Meeting, recommended England as the top choice for the 1974 gathering, “with Mexico or Finland as second and third choices,” respectively. The meeting was scheduled for 16–18 October 1974, at the Gloucester Hotel in London.

May 27 in A.A. History

In 1917, Nellie “Nell” Wing [right, c. 1946] was born in Kendall, New York, the daughter of William Frank and Daisy Shepard Wing.
    A non-alcoholic, she would serve as Bill W.’s secretary and administrative assistant at the Alcoholic Foundation/General Service Office in New York City from March 1947 until Bill’s death in 1971. In addition, she was A.A.’s first official Archivist from early 1972 until her retirement in December 1982.

In 1961, James “J.D.” Holmes, A.A. #8, died from “coronary insufficiency” at his home at 657 Elma Street [left, in Jun 2011] in Akron, Ohio, at the age of 66. He had gotten sober in Akron in September 1936.

Other significant events in May, day unknown

In 1923, Lois W., Bill’s wife [right: Bill and Lois on their Harley-Davidson, c. mid-1920s], suffered a third ectopic pregnancy, a condition in which the fertilized egg develops outside the uterus; her first two occurred in June and July 1922. In her memoir, Lois Remembers, she wrote:

    In May 1923 the improbably happened—a third ectopic. I was tutoring a young girl in Latin when I felt the first symptoms. After another operation I made a quick recovery. By then both tubes and the complete cystic ovary had been removed. A small portion of the other ovary was kept so that I might retain my feminine characteristics, it was said. Bill was often too drunk, for days at a time, to come to see me in the hospital.
    We had both deeply desired a family. But after my second ectopic, Bill and I knew positively that we could never have children. My tubes had apparently been closed since birth. Bill, even when drunk, took this overwhelming disappointment with grace and with kindness to me. But his drinking had been increasing steadily. It seemed that after all hope of having children had died, his bouts with alcohol had become even more frequent.
    I knew I had done nothing to prevent our having children; yet somehow I could not help feeling guilty. So how could I blame him for the increase in his drinking?
    This kind of thinking made me try harder to understand him and to be tolerant when he was drunk. But there were many times when I lost my temper. He never hit me, but I hit him. I remember with shame on time toward the end of his drinking, when I was so angry as he lay drunk on the bed that I beat his chest with both my firsts as hard as I could.

In 1932, Bill W., who had been sober for five weeks, and several engineers traveled to Bound Brook, New Jersey, to investigate a new photographic process at Pathé Laboratories [left]. Bill was the managing partner of a stock-buying syndicate, which he had formed with Arthur Wheeler and Frank Winans in April. His partnership agreement specified that if he drank, he would forfeit the full value of his share, including his original investment.

    After dinner, the engineers started a poker game and invited Bill to join them, but he declined. A jug of applejack called Jersey Lightning [right] appeared, and Bill also refused their repeated offers of a drink. By midnight, he found himself reminiscing about his drinking career: the Bronx cocktail that had been his first, the brandies he had on the ship to Europe during World War I, and the French wines. It became a game to list his drinking history and wonder what he hadn’t tasted. When the engineers offered him a drink once more, it occurred to him that he had never tried Jersey Lightning. He thought, “Why not? What harm could one taste do?”
    He was drunk for three days, and when his partners heard the story, he forfeited his entire interest in the syndicate.

May 25 in A.A. History

In 1925, Bill and Lois W. were 5½ weeks into their motorcycle trip investigating publicly held companies across the eastern U.S. At what the Burnham family called “The Camp,” located at Lake Emerald outside East Dorset, Vermont, Lois’s entry in her Diary of Two Motorcycle Hobos described how “Two tragedies occurred in the insect and bird life today.” With “astonishment,” she watched a dragonfly emerge “from the ugly brown beetle shell” she had found. As it flew away, a phoebe bird “darted down and gobbled it up!” Lois “sat down and cried. Later [that] afternoon one of the babies of the same phoebe bird fell out of the nest and was killed instantly” [right: phoebe eating a dragonfly]
.

In 1962, the three-day Central New York Area Conference [left: commemorative coin] began at the Watson Homestead Conference and Retreat Center [right] in Painted Post, New York.

In 1989, the four-day 32nd International Conference of Young People in Alcoholics Anonymous (ICYPAA) opened at the Salt Lake City Marriott and Salt Palace [left: aerial view of Salt Palace (left) and Marriott (right)] in Utah, drawing an attendance of 4,000. The theme of the conference was “Carry the Message.”

May 24 in A.A. History

In 1893, the Anti-Saloon League was founded in Oberlin, Ohio, by a group primarily consisting of ministers and professors who aimed to promote temperance and influence state government. It was a key component of the Progressive Era, enjoying strong support in the South and rural North, particularly from Protestant ministers and their congregations, especially Methodists, Baptists, Disciples, and Congregationalists. The League focused on legislation and was concerned with how legislators voted, rather than whether they drank. Its motto was “The saloon must go” [left: an Anti-Saloon League poster].
    Initially established as a state society in Ohio, the League’s influence spread rapidly, and it became a national organization in 1895. It quickly emerged as the most powerful prohibition lobby in the United States, overshadowing the older Woman’s Christian Temperance Union and the Prohibition Party. Its ultimate success came with the nationwide prohibition enshrined in the Constitution through the passage of the 18th Amendment in 1919.

In 1949, the American Psychiatric Association held its 105th annual meeting at the Windsor Hotel [right] in Montreal, Quebec, May 23–27. On Tuesday, the second day of the event, Bill W. delivered a talk titled “The Society of Alcoholics Anonymous.” During his presentation, he referenced an original six-step program, marking the earliest known mention of such a program. It had been 10½ years since he drafted the Twelve Steps for the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous, in December 1938. He stated categorically that these six steps had not evolved over time, but had been explicitly given to him by Ebby T. in November 1934:

My former schoolmate [Ebby] did, however, ascribe his new sobriety to certain ideas that this alcoholic [Rowland Hazard] and other Oxford people had given him. The particular practices my friend had selected for himself were simple:

• He admitted he was powerless to solve his own problem.
• He got honest with himself as never before; made an examination of conscience.
• He made a rigorous confession of his personal defects.
• He surveyed his distorted relations with people, visiting them to make restitution.
• He resolved to devote himself to helping others in need, without the usual demand for personal prestige or material gain.
• By meditation he sought God’s direction for his life and help to practice these principles at all times.

In 1950, James “Jim” S. [far left], 63, chief librarian of the Akron Beacon Journal, died at his home in Akron, Ohio [near left: obituary]. He was the first Australian to achieve sobriety in Alcoholics Anonymous, doing so in Akron in June 1937. Scott solicited, edited, and sometimes wrote several stories from Akron members that were included in the first edition of the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous. His own story appeared in that edition as “Traveler, Editor, Scholar” and in the second and third editions as “The News Hawk.”

May 23 in A.A. History

In 1888, Dr. Nathan Clark Burnham and Matilda Hoyt Spelman [left] were married—likely in the Swedenborgian Church [right]—in Brooklyn, New York. Their first child was Lois, who would marry Bill W.

May in A.A. History—day unknown

In 1954, [early; Pass It On wrongly states 1956] Bill W. received a letter from the notorious robber, kidnapper, and rapist Caryl Chessman [left, 1953], popularly known as “The Red Light Bandit.”

    In May 1948, Chessman was convicted on 17 of 18 counts for crimes committed during the first three weeks of January 1948. He was sentenced to death under California’s “Little Lindbergh Law”^* and, at the time he wrote to Bill, Chessman was on death row at San Quentin Prison [right: inside view, c. 1950s], awaiting execution on May 14. (He was granted a stay. Over nearly twelve years on death row, Chessman filed dozens of appeals, acting as his own attorney, and successfully avoided eight execution dates, often by only a few hours [below center: one headline when he was executed].)

    Later, in 1954, Prentice-Hall published Chessman’s autobiography, Cell 2455, Death Row: A Condemned Man’s Own Story [left: cover].^†  In it, Chessman drew a comparison between psychopaths and alcoholics. This prompted Jack Alexander, who likely saw a prepublication copy, to encourage him to write to Bill. Alexander wondered whether criminals could “recover” through a surrender similar to that of A.A. members, writing to Bill:

There is a close resemblance between the criminal psychopath and the alcoholic mind. Both are grandiose, resentful, defiant, and hating of authority; both unconsciously destroy themselves trying to destroy others.

    Chessman wrote to Bill that he

… woke up to the fact I’d been nothing more than a cynically clever, aggressively destructive, and sometimes violent damn fool.

    He decided he could do more than just feel sorry for himself:

I could tell my story and plead, not my personal cause, but society’s cause and the cause of those who—in my opinion, needlessly—are criminally damned and doomed.… I am most hopeful it will make a very useful contribution to a most vexing social problem.

    Bill replied on May 3. It is unknown whether Chessman ever saw the letter.

---

^* This law had been repealed by the time Chessman’s trial began but was in effect at the time of his crimes, and the repeal was not retroactive.
^† Chessman began writing this memoir after San Quentin Prison Warden Harley Teets encouraged him to do something with his life. With Teets’s support, he chronicled his descent into what he called criminally insane behavior. When the book was published, it became a bestseller and was adapted into a movie of the same name in 1955. Its success led Teets to try to prevent Chessman from writing anymore; however, three additional books by Chessman were later smuggled out of prison and published. In 1957, Teets died while serving as warden.
    Clinton T. Duffy, the first warden to introduce the A.A. program into prisons and a prominent opponent of the death penalty, was warden when Chessman first arrived. Duffy described him as one of the most dangerous men he had ever met: tough, mean, contemptuous, arrogant, deviant, a troublemaker, and a constant threat—“Chessman represented nothing.”

May 22 in A.A. History

In 1940. Works Publishing, Inc. was legally established as the publishing arm of the Alcoholic Foundation. Bill W. [near right] and Hank P. [far right] were asked to surrender their stock, with the stipulation that Dr. Bob and Anne S. would receive 10% royalties on sales of Alcoholics Anonymous for life (35¢ per book [~$7.99 in 2025]), which would normally have been the author’s (i.e., Bill’s). Hank was persuaded to give up his shares in exchange for a payment of $200 [~$4,570 in 2025] for office furniture that he claimed belonged to him, although it likely had already paid for.

In 1943, Cleveland, Ohio’s Alcoholics Anonymous celebrated the 4th anniversary. The June 1943 Cleveland Central Bulletin reported on the event [left] as follows:

FOUNDERS’ ANNIVERSARY PARTY

    Over 300 [?] persons jammed Masonic Hall in Cleveland Heights when the originators of the AA movement in Cleveland helped sponsor the Fourth Anniversary party, Saturday evening, May 22, in conjunction with the Lee Mayfield Group. After an excellent dinner, where the choice was steak or chicken, various speakers arose and spoke on the progress of the AA movement in Cleveland. These speakers included the first Clevelander in AA and the several others who were convinced by him as well as well-known Akronites.
    Excellent entertainment was also supplied and with the singing of Old [sic] Lang Syne, the crowd disbanded united in praise for the committee who arranged this inspiring evening.

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.

---

^* 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.

Seventeen years

Yesterday was the 17th anniversary of my first A.A. meeting, which marked the beginning of my current spell of continuous sobriety. I can't say I celebrated, because I was too busy doing things that are little more than the blessings of a sober life:

• Took my car in to have the oil changed and the engine light checked—I not only have a driver's license, I also have a car
• Worked—I am employable today
• Chaired a meeting of the local chapter of a professional organization—not only employed, but on the Board of Directors and also Program Chair
• Attended a funeral

The funeral, ironically enough, was for Bumblebee, someone I sponsored for a while. I suspect I was his last sponsor. I hadn't seem him in at least a year, and sometimes wondered if he named me when asked if he had a sponsor. Then I would wonder if he was even making meetings.

Apparently not. He was definitely out there. He committed suicide by stabbing himself to death in the parking lot of the apartment complex where he lived. In the femoral artery. Thank you, Bumblebee, for keeping it green for me on my anniversary.

Tonight I will celebrate with dinner and a meeting! Praise HP, from whom all blessings flow!

Is A.A. a religion?

On 17 March 2009, the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania issued an opinion in an appeal of the case of Glenside Center, Inc. [a clubhouse hosting meetings of various twelve-step programs] v. Abington Township. A lower court had found that the Glenside Center violated local zoning laws, after the Township received numerous complaints regarding an "adverse parking situation" that "made driving difficult and dangerous and prevented emergency traffic from getting through." There were also complaints about "urinating in public, using obscene language and trash which had been left by members attending meetings." Excessive noise and loitering are also mentioned in the opinion. (Clearly demonstrating the danger of these kinds of totally inappropriate, inconsiderate and non-sober behavior at any A.A. meeting.)

The appeal was on the basis of four issues, namely that the Zoning Board:

1. had incorrectly found that the use of the building did not meet the requirement of being primarily used as an "office,"
2. had denied the clubhouse its rights under RLUIPA¹,
3. had violated the clubhouse's right to free exercise of religion by determining that the clubhouse was a "Community Center," and
   
4. had failed to prove a compelling governmental interest and had failed to use the least restrictive means to further that interest.
   

My interest is only in the 2^nd and 3^rd issues insofar as they relate to whether or not A.A. can legally be considered a religion. In its opinion, the Court essentially determined that Alcoholics Anonymous is not a religion:

Glenside argues... it is a protected entity under RLUIPA because its activities are a religious exercise.... Glenside argues that AA is not a religion, but its activities and programs constitute a free exercise of religion under RLUIPA. It contends that the 12-step program that AA follows is certainly based upon a belief in a higher power, and various AA members testified that they found a connection with God by attending AA meetings. Glenside directs our attention to a New York Court of Appeals case, Griffin v. Coughlin,... which held that an AA meeting constituted an exercise of religion.

The Board, however, argues and we agree that Glenside presents no binding authority for its proposition that an AA meeting is a religious exercise as that term is used in RLUIPA.² Glenside failed to prove that any of the meetings are administered by a religious leader, i.e., a minister, priest, rabbi or other spiritual leader. Glenside does not hold any religious services or have any religious affiliations. Its Articles of Incorporation state nothing about being incorporated for a religious purpose, but only to assist people in recovering from addiction. Similarly, Glenside’s printed materials state that Glenside is not a religious organization and do not require that members possess any religious belief to participate. While Glenside argues that members have found a connection with God at its meetings, clearly, the primary purpose of the group meetings, whether they be for AA, NA or DA, is to support individuals who are recovering from alcohol, drug, gambling and debtor addictions, not to advance religion. Particularly where AA and NA meetings are concerned, the primary concern of those meetings is to treat substance abuse. Moreover, Glenside and others on its behalf testified that members come from all religious walks of life whether they be Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim or non-believers in a higher power. The fact that the 12-step program is used and it contains references to “God” and a “Higher Power” does not mean that all members believe that they are partaking in a religious experience when they are attending an AA or NA meeting.

Good for the Court, bad for Glenside Center, Inc. Bad, not because they lost their appeal, but for (1) encouraging the courts to consider A.A. a religion, (2) giving the appearance of violating A.A. tradition of having no opinion on outside issues, and (3) for providing a forum for a number of members of A.A. to violate A.A.'s tradition of anonymity at the level of press, radio and film (not to mention on television and on the Internet).

Glenside Center is not in any sense A.A. or part of A.A. It is a separately organized enterprise with the [presumable] purpose of providing meeting space for various twelve-step organizations. From the point of view of A.A. groups, it is in no respect different from a church, municipal building or community center providing space for meetings—all these entities are nothing more than landlords.

However, I suspect that all the principals of the Glenside Center are members of A.A. As stated in the opinion, many of those who testified on behalf of the Glenside Center are also members of A.A. One was identified by full name as a member of A.A. for 53 years (you'd think he'd know better after that long). The Center's argument included the following:

While AA or its related organizations do not claim to be an established religion, the constituent groups can and have been viewed as engaging in an exercise of religion. The Act broadly defines religious exercise to include "any exercise of religion, whether or not compelled by, or central to, a system of religious beliefs."

I became aware of this ruling when a friend in A.A. sent me a link to an entry about it in a Washington Post blog named "Under God." In it, David Waters argues that the Court made a mistake on the basis of four objections. After each objection, I'll give my objections to Mr Waters' objections.

Objection 1: Any person of faith can be a spiritual leader.

Actually, I would go even further than Mr Waters. Lack of "a religious leader, i.e., a minister, priest, rabbi or other spiritual leader" should not preclude a gathering from being religious. A prime example would be an unprogrammed meeting for worship of the Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as Quakers.

Objection 2: Assisting people in recovering from any addiction is a religious (and spiritual) purpose.

Accepting this argument would make every rehab and detox in the U.S. a religious organization. It would also make seeing any health-care practitioner for help with an addiction into a religious activity.

Objection 3: Any group that advances the healing of bodies and souls (and the forgiveness of debts and debtors) also advances religion.

By this argument, entering into any course of psychiatric or psychological therapy, participating in any of numerous self-help organizations or classes, going to see the doctor, going to the gym to work out, or seeking credit counseling would be considered a religious activity. This is patently absurd.

Objection 4: Clearly the court is unaware of the history and purpose of AA.

Clearly Mr Waters is not fully aware of the history and purpose of A.A. Let me address each of the facts he cites in support of his objection.

Alcoholics Anonymous was founded as a spiritual program, direct outgrowth of the Oxford Group at Calvary Episcopal Church in New York.

True. But it's also true that the Oxford Group (known since 2001 as Initiatives of Change) considered itself non-religious. Furthermore A.A. separated from the Oxford Group at least in part due to the latter's belief that alcoholism was a sin rather than a disease, and to sever what might appear as ties to a Christian organization.

AA meetings include recitations of The Lord's Prayer and the Serenity Prayer.

Actually, this seems to me to be a reasonably good argument. It's one reason I do not participate in saying the Lord's Prayer at meetings. Not all meetings use the Lord's Prayer, though I'd have to say that most in the U.S.³ do. As for the Serenity Prayer, so far as I know, it is not perceived to be associated with Christianity, despite its purported author being a Christian theologian. As insightful as it may be to us drunks, the idea would seem to be quite universal in thought and application among those who consider and practice such things. Indeed, the essential idea can be found in a Mother Goose rhyme:

For every ailment under the sun

There is a remedy, or there is none;

If there be one, try to find it;

If there be none, never mind it.

Back to Mr Waters' argument:

"AA indirectly derived much of its inspiration from the Church," Rev. Samuel M. Shoemaker, Rector of Calvary Church, said in 1955.

Key word: indirectly. I'd say that a huge number of institutions of Western civilization were indirectly derived from Christianity, not the least of which is the United States of America. Furthermore, citing a single person—a non-A.A. member at that—saying this in a single speech is not much of an argument. Bill W., co-founder of A.A. and a much better source to cite, said of the phrase God as we understood him that it was "tremendously important," "a ten-strike," enabling "thousands to join AA who would have otherwise gone away," opening the door to "those of fine religious training and those of none at all," making "one’s religion the business of the AA member himself and not that of his society."⁴

AA's Twelve Traditions includes No. 2: "For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority -- a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience." Seven of AA's famous Twelve Steps reference God, including:

• 2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
• 3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
• 11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
• 12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Newcomers to A.A. are commonly encourage to find a power greater than themselves even if that power is nothing more than a doorknob or an ashtray. Many A.A. members attain long-term sobriety using A.A. itself as a higher power (God is sometimes identified as an acronym, standing for "Group of Drunks"). Even casual acquaintance with A.A.'s program makes it clear that this higher power can be of whatever conception one so chooses. See also the quote of Bill W.'s referred to above.

"Would that the Church were like this," Shoemaker said in 1955, "ordinary men and women with great need who have found a great Answer, and do not hesitate to make it known wherever they can - a trained army of enthusiastic, humble, human workers whose efforts make life a different thing for other people!"

Is Mr Waters saying that a non-religious group of people cannot exhibit these same characteristics? I suspect that any number of political activists would be happy with such a description.

If a group that meets under spiritual precepts, performs rituals, and seeks to heal its members isn't religious, what else is it?

Rituals? To what rituals does Mr Waters refer? He hasn't mentioned any up to this point in the article and doesn't mention any after this either. And without rituals, all that's left is a group that uses spiritual precepts and seeks to heal its members. In at least one sense of the word spiritual, a vast number of groups satisfy this description.

Indeed, much of the argument comes down to whether or not there is a difference between spirituality and religion, and what that difference might be. From the American Heritage Dictionary:

spir·i·tu·al
ADJECTIVE:1. Of, relating to, consisting of, or having the nature of spirit; not tangible or material. See synonyms at immaterial. 2. Of, concerned with, or affecting the soul. 3. Of, from, or relating to God; deific. 4. Of or belonging to a church or religion; sacred. 5. Relating to or having the nature of spirits or a spirit; supernatural.

As will be clear to anyone who is familiar with A.A. and its program of recovery, A.A. itself would not accept any definition other than one with the broadest possible meaning. The meaning of A.A. being a spiritual program could be that it is religious to the member who is herself religious. That meaning could be only that it is intangible or immaterial to the member who is himself not religious. A.A. itself doesn't care. A.A. is areligious.

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¹Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act—a federal statute passed in 2000 to provide stronger protection for religious freedom in the land-use and prison contexts.

²The opinion footnotes this sentence with the following:

RLUIPA defines “Religious exercise” as follows:

(A) In general. The term “religious exercise” includes any exercise of religion, whether or not compelled by, or central to, a system of religious belief.

(B) Rule. The use, building, or conversion of real property for the purpose of religious exercise shall be considered to be religious exercise of the person or entity that uses or intends to use the property for that purpose.

³I know from personal experience that the Lord's Prayer is rarely used in Australia, and that because of this Australian members of A.A. pride themselves on being more consistent with A.A. principles than A.A. in the U.S. is.

⁴Full quote, from A Conversation with Bill W., A Synopsis of the Question-Answer Period following Bill W.'s talk at the NCCA Syposium in New York in 1960:

When these Steps were shown to my friends, their reactions were mixed indeed. Some argued that six steps had worked fine, so why twelve? From our agnostic contingent there were loud cries of too much “God.” Others objected to an expression which I had included which suggested getting on one’s knees while in prayer. I heavily resisted these objections for months. But I finally did my statement about a suitable prayerful posture and finally went along with that now tremendously important expression, “God as we understand Him” — this expression having been coined, I think, by one of our former atheist members. This was indeed a ten-strike. That one has since enabled thousands to join AA who would have otherwise gone away. It enabled people of fine religious training and those of none at all to associate freely and to work together. It made one’s religion the business of the AA member himself and not that of his society.

Still above ground and sober

For anyone who's wondering, I'm doing okay. I got elected to another Area office and expect to continue in General Service for another two years. Nimue is divorcing me after nearly three years of separation. Despite that, I feel as good as I have in a long time. Despite some heavy bouts of depression over the last nine months, I recently thought to myself, "Ah, so this is what it feels like not to be depressed! I had forgotten."

Despite the fact that I haven't posted for over nine months, every now and then, someone adds a comment to an old post. This, if nothing else, sporadically reminds me that I'd like to taking up at least semi-regular posting again. Absolutely no promises, we'll see.