September 10 in A.A. History

	In 1948, the Berea Group of Alcoholics Anonymous in Berea, Ohio [~12.4 mi, ~20.0 km SW of Cleveland], celebrated its 8th anniversary with Clarence S. as the main speaker [left: CD recording of his talk]. Its first meeting was on Friday, 23 August 1940, and the group continues to meet today [right: meeting place, St. Thomas Episcopal Church].

September 9 in A.A. History

In 1925, Melvin “Mel” B. [right, c. WWII] was born in Norfolk, Nebraska, the eldest son and middle child of three children of Bertha Swisher and Learner B.
    One of his schoolmates would be Johnny Carson, the longtime host of The Tonight Show. Mel would sober up in 1950 and become a prolific writer, freelancing for Ohio’s The Toledo Blade and authoring numerous books and articles. Writing as “Mel B.,” he would contribute dozens of articles to the A.A. Grapevine and publish several recovery- and A.A.-related books. Additionally, he would serve as the primary author, without attribution, of Pass It On, the General Service Conference-approved biography of Bill W.

In 1933, William “Bill” B. [left, with Lois W.] was born in Brooklyn, New York, the only child of William and Ruth McLintock B. 
    He would get sober on 8 Apr 1962; become a close friend of Lois W.’s for the last 16 years of her life; author The Lois Wilson Story: When Love is Not Enough (2005), along with 24 other titles; co-write the screenplay for the movie of the same name (2010); write the screenplay for and act (in the role of “Wade”) in My Name Is Bill W. (1989); produce a number of films, including Dog Day Afternoon, Kansas City Bomber and Serpico; serve as a Stepping Stones volunteer for a half century, and sit on the Stepping Stones Foundation Board of Trustees (1997–2006).

In 1935, Ernest “Ernie” K. [right] was born in Rochester, New York—just three months after A.A. was founded. He was the oldest of two children of Edward and Josephine Kurzejewski (Koo-zhay-yev’-ski). In 2009, he would reflect back on his surname:

    Eight years of grammar school in a German parish shortened that name for practical use, and when I began graduate school bringing transcripts in two names, I was advised to choose one. Tired of too-lengthy phone interactions, I opted for the one that was easier to spell. But I do remain proud of my Polish heritage and advertise it whenever appropriate.

    In 1979, Hazelden Educational Services would publish Ernie’s Not-God: A History of Alcoholics Anonymous, a revised and expanded version of his 1978 Harvard University dissertation. He would go on to write at least six more books, along with numerous monographs and articles on the intellectual significance of A.A., recovery, and spirituality.

	In 1936, Lois W.’s father, Dr. Clark Burnham [left], age 81, or possibly 80, died of pneumonia at Mount Vernon Hospital in Mount Vernon, New York [right, New York Times obituary]. He had graduated with honors from Franklin and Marshall College and studied medicine at the Hahnemann School of Medicine in Pennsylvania, specializing in gynecology. After his death, the Burnham family home at 182 Clinton St., Brooklyn, would be taken over by the mortgage company, allowing Lois and Bill to live there at a reduced rent (due to rent controls in the depressed housing market) until 1939.

September 8 in A.A. History

In 1894, James D. “J.D.” H. [right] was born in Groves County, Kentucky. He would become A.A. #10 (some sources say #8 or #17) in September 1936 and go on to be a founder of A.A. in Indiana.

September 7 in A.A. History

In 1939, Lois W. [near right] noted in her diary that Hank [P.] [far right] remained drunk.

In 1954, A.A. in the U.K. reprinted the U.S./Canada first edition of the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous, marking the first such reprint outside the U.S. [far left: U.K. Big Book 1st edition, 1st printing with dust jacket; near left: copyright page]. They would later do the same with the U.S./Canada second edition. The release of the third and fourth editions in the U.K. would coincide with their release in the U.S./Canada. All four U.K. versions contained the same stories as the U.S./Canada editions, although there was initial consideration of including uniquely British stories.

September 6 in A.A. History

	In 1939, Lois W. [left, late 1930s?] noted in her diary, “Hank [P.] [right] drunk, phoned Bill in the afternoon.”

September 5 in A.A. History

In 1907, Nancy F. was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She would come to A.A. in New York City in June 1945 at the age of 38, and struggle to stop drinking. Her story, “The Independent Blonde,” would be published in the second edition of the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous. However, according to her later account, she was not the author and did not even know her story would appear in the Big Book.

	In 1938, [Labor Day] Archie T. [left] arrived at Dr. Bob and Anne S.’s house [left: Bob and Anne on their porch] in Akron, Ohio, having had his last drink the day before. Sarah Klein and her husband had driven Archie down from Detroit. Bob admitted him to Akron City Hospital that day. Archie would later recall,

    I spent Labor Day in the hospital reading Emmet Fox’s [The] Sermon on the Mount [right]. It changed my entire outlook on life. It changed my direction.

He would stay with the Smiths for 10½ months before moving on to start A.A. in Detroit, Michigan. His story, “The Man Who Mastered Fear,” appeared in the first edition of the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous, and was retitled “The Fearful One” in the second and third editions.

In 1939, Lois W. [far left] wrote in her diary, “Kathleen [P.] [near left], phoned to say she thought Hank was drunk.”

In 1947, this is the “official” date of Brazil’s first A.A. group in Rio de Janeiro [right, Brazil with location of Rio de Janeiro marked], established by a tradition during a group meeting on 29 August 1950, around their third anniversary. While no one knows exactly how or when the Rio de Janeiro Group was formed, it is likely that Herbert “Herb” L. Daugherty, a sober American expatriate who had been living there since 1946, played some role in its creation.

September 4 in A.A. History

In 1897, John S. [right: as a young man] was born in Houlton, Maine, to Rev. Richard and Kate Bolton S.
    In the mid-1930s, he would become an oil tanker captain. In 1946, would get sober in Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.), where he was known as “Captain Jack.” He would play a crucial role in establishing the Loners Internationalists Meeting and its confidential bulletin, a meeting-in-print for “Loners,” “Homers,” “Internationalists,” “Port Contacts” (who serve as contacts for Internationalists visiting their port city), and “Loner Sponsors.” He and hundreds of Internationalists like him, who sailed the seven seas, would carry the A.A. message wherever they dropped anchor, significantly contributing to A.A.’s phenomenal worldwide growth.

September 3 in A.A. History

In 1905, Felicia G. [right, with her mother] was born in Narvosielica, in present-day Ukraine. Her father was a hard-drinking womanizer with a bankrupt estate in Russian Poland, the fortune-hunting Polish Count Józef G. Her mother, Eleanor Medill Patterson, was a Chicago-born newspaper heiress and the granddaughter of Joseph Medill, founder of The Chicago Tribune.
    Felicia would come to Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.) in 1943, relapse briefly during her first year, and have her last drink in 1944. Marty M. became her sponsor. Her story, “Stars Don’t Fall,” appears in the 2nd and 3rd editions of the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous.

In 1927, after receiving a letter from Frank Shaw of J. K. Rice & Co. inquiring about rumors of his drinking again, Bill W. replied. He was researching the Cuban sugar industry [left: cutting sugar cane on a Cuban plantation] for Frank while staying at the luxurious Hotel Sevilla in Havana, Cuba. Bill promised that he and Lois were “going to move to another place which will be more reasonable and which from now on will answer our purpose just as well.” However, Lois later recalled that they never left the Sevilla.
    Bill’s letter continued:

    Thank you for your remittance and your letter which followed. Now a few lines for your eyes alone. I have never said anything to you about the liquor question, but now that you mention it and also for the good reason that you are investing your perfectly good money in me, I am at last very happy to say that I have had a final showdown (with myself) on the matter. It has always been a serious handicap to me, so that you appreciate how glad I am to be finally rid of it. It got to the point where I had to decide whether to be a monkey or a man. I know it is going to be a tough job, but nevertheless the best thing I ever did for myself and everybody concerned. That is that, so let us now forget about it.

    Later, Lois would write that Bill drank the entire time they were in Cuba.

In 1930, after being fired in the fall by his “good friend” Dick Johnson, who had given him a job in Montreal—mentioned in his Big Book story on p. 4: “Next morning I telephoned a friend in Montreal…”—Bill W. wrote a pledge to Lois to stop drinking in the family Bible: “Finally and for a lifetime, thank God for your love.” This would be the fourth and final pledge he wrote there [right]. Following this, in despair, he would refrain from making any further promises, at least in their Bible.

In 1938 [possibly the 4th], Archie T. [left], who had been homeless until he moved in with his “unsuspecting” friend, Ralph, was facing the prospect of having to leave:

    Something went wrong with my drinking schedule on the 3rd of September, on a Friday^* night. Instead of getting drunk in the morning and being asleep in the afternoon and being out and getting drunk in the evening and coming home after Ralph went to bed, I got tangled up somewhere and found myself at home in bed at at [sic] ten o’clock at night and he was home too. The time was drawing near when his family were returning from their vacation and I was going to have to get out of there and incapable of finding myself a room because I couldn’t stay sober long enough to face a perspective [sic] landlady and I had no money with which to pay room rent although in that marvelous alcoholic way, I always had money to drink with. Now don’t ask me to explain that. I lay in bed thinking about approaching him, and thought, “No, he’s been very good to me, he’s done a great deal for me in the past. I don’t want to bother him. I don’t want to bother anybody anymore.”
    If I can’t find a solution to this problem by next Monday, this was Labor Day weekend, I’ll put an end to everything. But I finally concluded that before I did anything like that I’d better go in and talk to him. I went in with nothing on 
my mind for the solutions to my problems except to ask him if he would lend me $50. He got out of bed, where he’d been reading, and walked up and down the floor and said: “You don’t need $50, you need a great deal more than that.” Well, I agreed with him on that. But he said “You need a new lease on life, a new interest. I can’t give you those things, but I know someone who might. He asked me if I’d be willing to go and talk to this woman [Sarah Klein^†]. I knew her very slightly, and I said, “Yes”. Because I would have said yes to anything or anybody who might have some answers for me because I no longer had answers for anything. So he grabbed the telephone and started to make a date for me for the next day and I started to back water [sic]. But it was too late and he made an appointment for me to see this woman the next day.
    At four o’clock in the afternoon! [sic] He took me out, bought me some drinks, brought me home, and put me to bed. And I lay there somewhat quieted by the drinks and I wondered how I was going to keep an appointment at four o’clock in the afternoon. And be reasonably sober! And I finally hit on a marvelous solution. I would get up a little earlier than usual and make an effort to get drunk faster. So that I would come home knowing my own habits and sleep off the first of the day’s drinks and then go straight over and see her to keep this appointment. I did these things and they worked out that way.
    I don’t know when I had my last drink. It was on Saturday morning on the third of September before Labor Day in 1938. What time of day it was in the morning I don’t know. I blanked out. I got in this car 25 minutes after six. At about half-past seven is the latest my memory serves me. What time I left there and went home and passed out I don’t know. I saw this woman, and to be brief, she offered me a chance to go down to Akron and to meet some men who had found a solution to their problem which was my problem. She offered to take me, she and her husband offered to take me there, and to do it the next day if I were willing to go. She however insisted that I make up my own mind about it, perfectly freely and without any pressure from her. This took me quite a while. I spent a long time in her house sitting there thinking about it.
    I finally made the decision. I left her house with the full intention of hurrying as fast as my car would take me to the nearest saloon in getting a drink. Half way [sic] to the saloon something stopped me. I can’t tell you what it was. I know what I think it was. Today I’m sure of what it was. I’m sure that her prayers, which were all that were left to her, to do after she let go of me, that her prayers did that. However, I went home and went to bed after 18 days of continuous drinking I went home and went to bed and sweated it out all night. I don’t need to describe that part of it to you. It makes me shutter [sic] to think of it and it would make all you to [sic] shutter [sic]

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*The first Friday of September 1938 fell on the 2nd.
^†Sarah Klein [right] was known as “The Angel of AA” for her role in helping Archie establish A.A. meetings in Detroit and for her dedication in carrying the A.A. message to alcoholics, particularly n hospitals and prisons.

In 1940, The Wichita Beacon (Kansas) published an article [left] titled “Wichita Will Have Chapter Of ‘Alcoholics Anony­mous.’” An unnamed hospitalized Wichitan said that “he has contacted numerous of Wichita’s habitual drunkards and during this week will seek them out to enroll them in the organization.” The article ended by noting, “In telling the story of the A.A. who began the organization, the Wichitan illustrated the fundamental help to alcoholics—religion.”

    (It was in Wichita, Kansas, on 27 December 1900, that Carry A. Nation [right] first began using a hatchet—rather than the rocks and bricks she had previously used—against saloons.) 

September 2 in A.A. History

	In 1977, the three-day 20th International Conference of Young People in Alcoholics Anonymous (ICYPAA) began at the Shamrock Hilton [left] in Houston, Texas. The theme of the conference was “Sharing Everyone’s Recovery” [right: flyer/registration form; below: conference memorabilia].

September 1 in A.A. History

	In 1939, “Earl T―and the Earlytimers” met* in Evanston, Illinois, forming the first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in the Chicago area. This meeting took place in the apartment of Earl [left] and his wife, Katie**, at 1324 Central St. [right].

	Eight† people attended: Earl, Katie, Dick R., Ken A., Sadie I., Sylvia K. [left], George M., and a non-alcoholic, Grace Cultice [right, 1951], who would later become the secretary of the group and be known as “The Angel of Chicago A.A.”

^*One source notes that the meeting occurred on “a Tuesday night in September,” suggesting the 5th, 12th, 19th, or 26th, while others indicate the 13th, 20th, or 21st.
^**Other sources claim the meeting was held “at Sylvia Kauffman’s apartment on Central Street.”
^†There are discrepancies regarding attendance; one source states there were “six brand-new A.A.s and three non-alcoholic spouses,” while another reports that “eight people were present, four men and four women, two of whom were non-alcoholics.”

In 1954, Bill W. began dictating “the story of myself and the story of AA from true recollection only” to Ed B. at the Hotel Bedford [right], 118 E. 40th St. in Manhattan. Bill also said,

    [I]t is my purpose to start in with childhood recollections bearing upon my background and ancestry and the events of that time as they related primarily to my personality structure and the defects in it, which no doubt laid the groundwork for my alcoholism.…
    I have always been intensely averse to anything autobiographical being done in print. Indeed, I have always been very much against a biography of any sort, due to our studied policy of playing the founding of this movement down, for as people in it know, this is a society which can function peculiarly well without too much sanction from the top. Of course, I realize that someday biographies may be written, and there is no legal means of preventing them. Therefore the early part of this narrative is intended to set the record somewhere near straight, and for this immediate purpose I will just try to hit a few highlights in the sketch to follow.

	A transcript of this recording led to the publication of Bill W.: My First 40 Years [left: 3rd edition cover] by Hazelden in 2000. The first printing consisted of only 2,500 copies, making it somewhat rare. It also served as the foundation for the first section of Robert Thomsen’s Bill W. [right: 1st edition cover], first published in 1975.

August in A.A. History, date unknown

	In 1936, Frank Buchman [left, 1936] traveled to Germany for the Olympic Games, feeling a heavy burden about Hitler’s actions there due to his deep attachment to the country and its people. While in Berlin, he shared his concerns with Danish journalist Jacob Kronika [right, 1945] at the Esplanade, stating,

    Germany has come under the dominion of a terrible demoniac force. A counter-action is urgent. We must ask God for guidance and strength to start an anti-demoniac counter-action under the sign of the Cross of Christ in the democratic countries bordering on Germany, especially in the small neighbouring countries.

	Upon arriving in Berlin, Moni von Cramon arranged for Buchman to attend a lunch hosted by a German diplomat and his wife, where Himmler [left] would be present. Buchman hoped to secure an interview with Himmler, believing that through him, he could reach Hitler [right]. He managed to schedule an appointment for a few days later.

    However, the “interview” turned out to be a complete disaster. Himmler had hoped to exploit the “absolute obedience” to God exhibited by Moral Re-Armament^* for the benefit of his followers in the S.S. and the Nazis, but he completely failed in this.
    Younger colleagues who accompanied Buchman to the interview confirmed his account, reporting that Himmler entered with several henchmen, delivered a propagandistic speech about Nazism, and left without allowing Buchman or his associates to speak. Buchman’s immediate response was, “Here are devilish forces at work. We can’t do anything here.”
    Ultimately, he never met Hitler and did not make any further attempts to do so.

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^*Abbreviated “MRA,” and formerly known as the Oxford Group

In 1939, Herbert “Bert” T. [left], a member of A.A. in New York City, pledged his fashionable 5th Ave. tailor shop—already heavily mortgaged due to his drinking—as collateral for a $1,000 [~$23,000 in 2025] loan to Works Publishing.
    Bill W. was desperate to keep the business afloat until the article “Alcoholics and God,” edited by Fulton Oursler, was published in Liberty magazine. To secure the funds, Bert reached out to a wealthy client, Mr. Cochran, in Baltimore, Maryland, who was sympathetic to A.A. Bert explained the situation and requested a loan. Cochran hesitated. When Bert suggested that he buy stock in Works Publishing, Cochran expressed even more doubt and, after reviewing the balance sheet, declined the offer. Finally, Bert proposed co-signing a loan, which Cochran enthusiastically accepted.

    Bill later wrote, “This probably saved the book company.” The magazine article would be published on September 30 [right: magazine cover]; it would generate 800 inquiries and result in sufficient book sales to sustain Works Publishing through 1939. Unfortunately, Bert’s tailor shop would go broke within a year or two.

    [Some sources date this loan to December 6, but that date makes no sense.] 

August 30 in A.A. History

In 1943, the Selective Service finally responded to Clarence S.’s application to become an officer in the U.S. Army, informing him that his request had been referred to another department. He had previously served a brief stint at Officer Candidate School in the U.S. Army in 1942. A month earlier, he had been classified as 1-A by the Selective Service [right: Clarence in uniform].

August 29 in A.A. History

In 1886, T. Henry Williams [right] was born in South Woodstock, Connecticut. In the 1930s, he and his wife, Clarace, hosted meetings of the Oxford Group at their home [left] in Akron, Ohio. This location served as a meeting place for early members of Alcoholics Anonymous, who referred to themselves as the Alcoholic Squad of the Oxford Group. At the end of 1939, they began meeting separately as an independent A.A. group.

In 1956, Bill W. first took LSD in California under the guidance of Gerald Heard, a British-born American historian, science writer, public lecturer, educator, and philosopher. Heard had introduced Bill to Aldous Huxley, an English writer and philosopher, as well as to British psychiatrists Drs. Humphry Osmond^* and Abram Hoffer, who were working with schizophrenic and alcoholic patients in Canada. At that time, LSD was believed to have psychotherapeutic potential, with research being funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Academy of Sciences. Osmond and Hoffer aimed to induce an experience similar to delirium tremens (the DTs) in the hope of shocking alcoholics away from alcohol. Bill took LSD with Heard and Huxley. 
    Among those Bill later invited to experiment with LSD, and who accepted, were Nell Wing, Father Ed Dowling, Sam Shoemaker, Lois W. (a reluctant participant), Marty M., and Helen W. They participated in these experiments in New York under the medical supervision of a psychiatrist from Roosevelt Hospital. The experiments would also have significant repercussions within Alcoholics Anonymous, yet Bill continued his LSD experiments into 1959 and possibly into the 1960s.

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^*Osmond coined the term “psychedelic”—from the Greek ψυχή (psyche, meaning “mind”) and δῆλος (delos, meaning “manifest”)—in a letter to Huxley in April 1956.

Today in A.A. History—August 29–September 1

	In 1991, the 34th International Conference of Young People in Alcoholics Anonymous (ICYPAA) took place in at the Hilton San Francisco [right: c. 1971–73] in San Francisco, California [far left: registration form; near left: one bit of swag from the event].

August 28 in A.A. History

	In 1926, Bill W. spent several days visiting and otherwise investigating the American Writing Paper Co. [right: stock certificate; left: logo]. Two days later, his wife, Lois, summarized in her diary what Bill had told her:

    Paper making had always sounded dull until we came here and learned a little about it. It turns out to be complicated and quite an art. Saturday Bill took me through one of the plants where red photographic paper for Eastman and blue paper for phonograph records are made. The company has the government contract for postcards and envelopes.
    Bill raves about the ability and personality of the president, Mr. Willson, and instead of a report about costs and profits, he plans to write about the power of one man to make a success of a company that had failed. All those with whom Bill has talked, whether laborer, superintendent, or official of the company, has been full of enthusiasm and pep, eager to do a good job for Mr. Willson. He has won me over, too, for Saturday afternoon he asked Bill and me to go up Mt. Tom with him.

August 27 in A.A. History

In 1862, Gardner Fayette Griffith [right] (Bill W.’s maternal grandfather) enlisted at the age of 21 in Danby, Vermont, for nine months with Company B of Vermont’s 14th Regiment, which would be called up into the Union Army. In return, he received a bounty of $100 [~$3,200 in 2025] from the town of Danby.

Today in A.A. History—August 27–30

	In 1992, the 35th International Conference of Young People in Alcoholics Anonymous (ICYPAA) took place at the Marriott Society Center Hotel* [left] in Cleveland, Ohio. The theme was “Back to Basics” [right: souvenir tee shirt]. *Later renamed the Marriott at Key Center, likely in 1994, shortly after the Society Center was renamed the Key Center.