April 3 in A.A. History

In 1940, the fifth meeting of the Philadelphia Group of A.A. in Pennsylvania, organized by non-alcoholic Drs. A. Weise Hammer [near right] and Dudley Saul [far right], took place at Saint Luke’s Hospital. The meeting was open to the public and attracted thirty attendees.

In 1941, Florida’s first A.A. group was formally organized in Miami.
    The first A.A. contact from Florida was Horace S., a loner in Daytona Beach, who reached out to the Alcoholic Foundation in November 1939. By July 1942, he had moved to Connecticut, leaving no A.A. members behind.

    In 1940, Frank P., a New York A.A. member residing in Miami, became the local contact. In April of that year, Roger C. sought help from the Alcoholic Foundation. Later, in November, Joe T.’s wife also contacted the Foundation, which connected Roger and Joe with Frank P. Together, they began addressing inquiries about A.A. in the Miami area, with support from the ubiquitous traveling salesman and A.A. member Irwin “Irv” M. [left]. That same month, Charlie C. wrote to the Foundation to inquire about starting a meeting in nearby Fort Lauderdale, where he moved in December. Carl C. was recruited in December 1940, and informal meetings began in Miami.

In 1958, in a letter to Marjorie W., Bill W. [right] expressed “his most succinct later understanding of [his so-called ‘white light’] experience [in Towns Hospital in December 1934]”:

What I really meant was this: I was catapulted into a spiritual experience, which gave me the capability of feeling the presence of God, His love, and His omnipotence. And, most of all, His personal availability to me. Of course this is the ABC of the conversion experience—something as old as man himself. So maybe an awareness of God and some sense of relation to him constitutes a fourth dimension. At least this was true for me, one who had no belief or such sensibility whatever.

In 1960, Father Edward “Ed” Dowling, S.J. [left], 61½, died peacefully in his sleep from a heart attack early this Sunday morning in Memphis, Tennessee. Fr. Ed struggled with compulsive overeating, consuming excessive amounts of starch, butter, salt, and sugar. His weight reached 240 lbs [~110 kg], but he later managed to lose 60 lbs [~27 kg] using strategies based on the Twelve Steps. Unfortunately, by this time, he had already caused permanent damage to his heart and arteries. The first sign of medical problems occurred in June 1952, when he suffered a retinal stroke—a blood clot blocking an artery to his retina—that resulted in his hospitalization.

April 2 in A.A. History

In 1966, Dr. Harry M. Tiebout [right] died from heart disease in Greenwich, Connecticut. An early supporter of Alcoholics Anonymous, he served as the head psychiatrist at Blythewood Sanitarium, where Margaret “Marty” M.—author of “Women Suffer Too” in the first and second editions of Alcoholics Anonymous—and “Grennie” C. found sobriety. Marty, Bill W., and other early members were among his patients. His paper, “The Ego Factors in Surrender in Alcoholism,” was published in the December 1954 issue of the Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcohol (now known as the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs).

April 1 in A.A. History

In 1926, after three months of courtship, Clarence S. [near right, 1942] and Dorothy Wright [far right] got married.

In 1940, Lawrence “Larry” J. [left] of Houston, Texas wrote the A.A. prayer that was used to begin A.A. meetings in Texas for many years:

Our Father, we come to you as a friend.
You have said that, where two or three are gathered together in your name, there you will be in the midst. We believe you are here with us now.
We believe this is something you would have us do, and that it has your blessing.
We believe that you want us to be real partners with you in this business of living, accepting our full responsibility, and certain that the reward will be freedom, and growth, and happiness.
For this we are grateful.
We ask you, at all times, to guide us.
Help us daily to come closer to you, and grant us new ways of living our gratitude.

Amen.

In 1944, Marty M. [right, 1946] moved to New Haven, Connecticut, to establish the National Committee for Education on Alcoholism (NCEA), which initially had its office at Yale University. During this time, Marty stayed with the Jellineks and attended the Yale Summer School of Alcohol Studies, which had started the year before.

In 1945, [Easter Sunday] Knickerbocker Hospital [left, c. 1940] opened a small ward dedicated to the treatment of alcoholism, making it the first general hospital in New York City to have such a facility. This is significant because many general hospitals at that time would not admit alcoholics; instead, their doctors had to admit them under false diagnoses.

In 1950, The Saturday Evening Post published Jack Alexander’s “The Drunkard’s Best Friend” [right, p. 1], a follow-up to his article about A.A., “Alcoholics Anonymous: Freed Slaves of Drink, Now They Free Others,” which was published on 1 March 1941.

In 1966, Sister Ignatia [far left], born Mary Ignatia Gavin, died at the age of 77 at the motherhouse of the Sisters of Charity in Richfield, Ohio. While working with Dr. Bob S. [near left], she treated thousands of early A.A. members at St. Thomas Hospital in Akron, Ohio. She was buried in the motherhouse cemetery.

In 1970, A.A.’s General Service Office (G.S.O.) moved from 305 E. 45th St. to 468 Park Ave. S. (formerly 4th Ave.). Box 4-5-9 reported:

    A building between 31st and 32nd Streets, on the west side of Park Ave. South (formerly 4th Ave.), is the new home for G.S.O. and the Grapevine…
    To find us, look for 468 Park Ave. South here in New York City.…“Why the move? The two main rea­sons are: (1) to save money, and (2) to get more space.”

In 1984, Ron R. founded The Twelve Coconuts Group at Kapiolani Park [right: the Twelve Coconuts], Waikiki, Hawaii. He later recalled,

    For about three weeks I went all over town to different meetings with bookmarks that had the 11th Step Prayer on them, I had gotten them from a Catholic Book Store… [I wrote them] up with “New Meeting in Kapiolani Park, Mon. Wed. and Fridays at seven in the morning. April 1st. I did a lot of writing. The first meeting had 32 people.

March 31 in A.A. History

In 1939, Bill W. drove from Cornwall, New York, to New York City, presumably in Hank P.’s car, to secure enough money to pay the hotel bill for the two nights he, Hank, Ruth Hock, and Dorothy Wright S. had stayed. The four of them had been correcting printers’ proofs of the book Alcoholics Anonymous [left: 1st edition, 2nd printing] based on the hand-edited multilith manuscript, a task that was neither quick nor easy. Together, they had only half the cash needed to cover their stay.
    In New York City, Bill approached Charlie (Charles B.) Towns [right], the owner of Towns Hospital, where he and Hank had gotten sober, and explained the situation. Charlie lent Bill the money required to pay the bill, plus an additional $100 [~$2,300 in 2025].
    Bill later wrote, “Mr. Towns was not too favorably impressed when he heard where we stood, but he came through with the hotel bill and about a hundred dollars to spare.… We all returned to New York in high spirits.”

In 1933, the Chicago Daily Tribune reported, “State to Open 1st Hospital to Treat Alcoholic Pa­tients” [right: article].

In 1947, England’s first known A.A. meeting took place at 8 p.m. in Room 202 of London’s upscale Dorchester Hotel [left, 1931], following an invitation from New York City A.A. member Grace O. [below right]. The Alcoholic Foundation had asked her to reach out to several individuals in Britain seeking information about A.A. The previous Saturday, the 29th, she had met an alcoholic known as “Canadian Bob” at a restaurant on Dean Street in London. The Dorchester meeting was attended by Grace, Robert “Canadian Bob” B., Chris L. B.—who was likely the first person in England to use the A.A. program to achieve sobriety—Sgt. Vernon W. (an American soldier), and Norman Rees-Watkins (from South Croydon and still drinking). Some sources also mention additional attendees: Pat F. (from London), Ward Williams (an American), Tony F. (an Irish airman), “Flash” W. (an American), and Pat G. (a female member from California whom Grace had met on the voyage from New York to London).

    As Bob later recalled the Dorchester meeting:

    It was Grace O. who really triggered off the inception of AA in England. She had written to me before she and her husband, Fulton, embarked at New York on one of the Queens. During lunch in London, her husband and I mapped out on a Saturday plans for a meeting the following Monday. Eight of us met in her hotel room, the last night of March 1947 and the five Londoners chose me as Secretary.

    Subsequent meetings were held at Canadian Bob’s home [left, c. 1946] on Mortlake Road in Kew and in various cafés.

In 1954, Bill W. wrote in a letter to Jack Alexander, “The whole A.A. Tradition is, in a sense, the result of my gradual adjustment to reality.”

March 30 in A.A. History

In 1910, Searcy W. [right] was born in Funston, Texas, to James and Etta W.
    He was an active member of Alcoholics Anonymous for 57 years. In 1948, at the urging of Bill W., Searcy began attending the Yale School of Alcohol Studies and later graduated. In 1950, he founded the Texas Clinic-Hospital for Alcoholism in Dallas. It was at this facility that Ebby T. sobered up in 1953; he remained sober for most of the next 13 years.
    His motto was, “Trust God, clean house, help others,” to which he would add, “... and it doesn't have to be done in that order!”

In 1939, Bill W., Hank P., and Ruth Hock [left, respectively] spent a second day in Cornwall, New York, correcting the galley proofs of the book Alcoholics Anonymous. The number of changes was so extensive that Cornwall Press charged Works Publishing an additional $33 [~$754 in 2025] for “Author’s corrections,” noting that this amounted to 13.2 hours at $2.50 [~$57 in 2025] per hour. With the job finally complete, they found themselves with only half the money they owed the Cornwall Inn, prompting them to stay an extra night.

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.

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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.