November 2 in A.A. History

1881: Frank Belford Amos [left] was born in Caldwell, Ohio, the youngest of three children of John Major and Mary Elizabeth Wallar Amos. He would become a close associate of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and an original Class A (non-alcoholic) trustee of the Alcoholic Foundation.

1939: The Cleveland (Ohio) Plain Dealer published the first article in a second series by Elrick B. Davis about Alcoholics Anonymous, titled “A Noted Divine Reviews ‘Alcoholics Anonymous’” [right]:

When 100 members of Alcoholics Anonymous, the extraordinary fellowship of men and women who have cured themselves of “incurable” alcoholism by curing each other and adopting a “spiritual way of life,” had established their cures to the satisfaction of their physicians, families, employers and psychotherapists, they published a book.

It is a 400-page volume of which half is a history of the movement and a description of its methods, and the other half a collection of 30 case histories designed to show what a wide variety of persons the fellowship has cured.

November in A.A. History—day unknown

1934: Rev. Dr. Samuel Moor Shoemaker III [left, c. 1940] wrote in his personal diary:

A significant thing… met Bill W――.

Note that this was the month before Bill W.’s final stay at Towns Hospital.

1934: [Late] While staying at the Calvary Rescue Mission in New York City, Edwin “Ebby” T. [near right] learned about the drinking problem of his old schoolmate, Bill W. [far right, mid-late 1930s]. Ebby called Bill (or his wife Lois), who invited him over for dinner. During his visit, Ebby shared his recovery experience, “one alcoholic talking to another.” Although Bill, who was intoxicated at the time, and Ebby, who was sober, later had very different recollections of this key event, Lois’s brief account—not surprisingly—generally aligned with Bill’s.

Earlier in the year, while in Vermont, Rowland Hazard, III [far left] and Francis Shepard “Shep” [near left] Cornell had introduced Ebby to the Oxford Group. Later, Rowland had taken Ebby to the Calvary Rescue Mission.

1935: John Henry Fitzhugh “Fitz” M. [right] was discharged from Towns Hospital and became the third person to get sober and join A.A. in New York, following Hank P. and Bill R. His story, “Our Southern Friend,” would appear in all four editions of the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous.

A “blue blood” from Maryland and the son of an Episcopalian minister, Fitz was said to be quite handsome, with chiseled features and the quiet, easy charm of the landed gentry. He embodied the qualities of a true Southern gentleman. Lois W. described Fitz as an impractical, lovable dreamer. His intellectual and scholarly traits gave him common ground with Bill W., who—like Fitz—was also a dreamer.

Alcoholism may have run in his mother’s family. Although they never drank at home, Fitz discovered during his first drink in college that it alleviated his fears and sense of inferiority. He had attempted to enlist during World War I but could not pass the physical examination, which further contributed to his feelings of inadequacy. He had held a good job with a large corporation until the onset of the Great Depression. Subsequently, he worked various jobs—as a traveling salesman, teacher, and farmer—but he couldn’t stop drinking. He had been drunk during significant moments: when his mother-in-law died, when his own mother died, and when his child was born. His wife had heard about Towns Hospital in New York City and urged him to go; he eventually agreed.

November 1 in A.A. History

1934: Edwin “Ebby” T. [left] made his “surrender,” presumably to Jesus Christ, at an Oxford Group meeting at the Calvary Church Rescue Mission [right, c. 1930s], located at 246 E. 23rd St. in New York City.

1941: Oklahoma’s Oklahoma City Times published an article titled “For Drunks: A Real Cure Comes to City” [right], which reported, in part:

Seven guys who can’t take their liquor without becoming “175 pounds each of roaring hell” met in an office in the Ramsey Tower Friday night to work over the eighth guy who was roaring drunk.

It was the first mass meeting here of Alcoholics Anonymous, an organization of former drunks formed by a drunk in New York six years ago, for the purpose of curing and keeping cured the sort of drinkers who are “alergic” [sic] to alcohol.

1947: A.A. “Group #1” was started in Anchorage [left, 1945], Alaska, with Herman C. as its leader. It would be the first lasting group in Alaska. Jack Alexander would write in his article “The Drunkard’s Best Friend,” published in The Saturday Evening Post in April 1950:

The group at Anchorage, Alaska, which started in a blizzard, has a dozen members, including one slightly puzzled Eskimo.

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^*Eskimo has been criticized as an offensive term. In Canada, Eskimo is especially frowned on; the only acceptable term is Inuit, and many Americans have come to prefer this name. Inuit is a more specific term than Eskimo, but properly applying to the traditionally Inuit-speaking peoples of Arctic Canada and parts of Greenland. In southwest Alaska and Arctic Siberia, where Inuit is not spoken, the comparable term is Yupik, which has not gained as wide a currency as Inuit. Use of these more specific terms is preferable when speaking of the appropriate ethnic group. For lack of a universally accepted general term, Eskimo is still often used in the U.S. for speaking of the Yupik and Inuit peoples collectively.

1951: The San Francisco Group, the first Alcoholics Anonymous group on the North American West Coast, had been arranged for 21 November 1939 by Ray W., a New York member, who had gone there to attend a sales course. Some of those on the list of contacts he had brought provided the attendees for that meeting. After a few days, having completed his sales training, Ray left for home. Bill later recalled that after that, “there was plenty of slipping and backsliding.” Early on, the Alcoholic Foundation, in New York City, “began writing letters to San Francisco, but the replies were sketchy and uncertain.” Two non-alcoholics—Mrs. Gordon Oram and Dr. Percy Poliak—struggled to keep the group going. At the end of 1940, a San Francisco member appeared at the Alcoholic Foundation. According to Bill, “She was a little tight, and crying.… [S]he said, ‘Bill, we’ve been going a whole year in San Francisco and do you know that at Christmas time we were all drunk.’”

But the A.A.s in San Francisco somehow turned around. In the early- to mid-1950s, Bill described his recognition of this fact:

Only a few years later, in 1951, the Lasker Award was given to A.A. in the San Francisco Opera House. On the night following the award presentation there was an A.A. meeting, and the huge place was packed. Sober alcoholics were practically hanging from the rafters. What once looked like a mighty poor acorn had produced a great oak.

1963: The first all-Swiss A.A. meeting, a two-day event that began on this date, brought together French- and German-speaking members. Following this gathering, the all-Swiss Bulletin would be published in both languages [left: “Latest News from Abroad,” Box 4-5-9, Dec 1963, p. 2].

2001: The fourth edition of Alcoholics Anonymous (the “Big Book”) [right: cover] was published; it included 24 new personal stories.

2001: JP Miller, the pen name of James Pinckney “Pappy” Miller [left, c. early 1980s], 81, died of pneumonia in Flemington, New Jersey. He wrote the screenplay for the film Days of Wine and Roses, which starred Jack Lemmon, Lee Remick, Charles Bickford, and Jack Klugman.

2022: JAMA Network Open published an open-access article by Marissa B. Esser, PhD; Gregory Leung, PhD; Adam Sherk, PhD; et al., titled “Estimated Deaths Attributable to Excessive Alcohol Use Among US Adults Aged 20 to 64 Years, 2015 to 2019” [right: p. 1]. The article concluded that an estimated…

694,660 mean deaths per year between 2015 and 2019 suggest that excessive alcohol consumption accounted for 12.9% of total deaths among adults aged 20 to 64 years and 20.3% of deaths among adults aged 20 to 49 years.

2024: A.A.W.S., Inc. first published the Conference-approved soft-cover Plain Language Big Book: A Tool for Reading “Alcoholics Anonymous” [left: cover].

October 31 in A.A. History

1939: John Henry Fitzhugh “Fitz” M. [near right] and Hardin C. [far right]—both previously designated as “loners”—started the Washington (DC) Group of A.A. at Hardin’s home. Within months, Ned F., Bill E., George S., and Steve M. joined them. [This date assumes the group began on a Tuesday, which became their regular meeting night; they may have met for the first time 1–3 days earlier.]

1945: Vernon E. Fabrick had his last drink. Born 22 April 1895, he would join the Pasadena (California) Group and die on 18 June 1964, with 18 years of sobriety [left: Vernon F.’s Big Book (leather cover, inside front cover) and letter of condolence from the AA Grapevine editor to his widow].

1951: The American Public Health Association presented the Lasker Award to Alcoholics Anonymous at its Annual Meeting, held at the San Francisco Opera House, for “meritorious service in the public health.” Each recipient received a statuette of the Winged Victory [right]. Originally, the award was intended for Bill W., but he asked that it be given to the Fellowship instead. The Lasker Foundation agreed, and when the Alcoholic Foundation Board polled Conference delegates by mail, the delegates also approved. The Foundation declined the accompanying $1,000 cash grant [~$13,000 in 2026].

1957: John Richard “Dick” S. [left] died in Stow, Ohio. He had gotten sober on 28 February 1937 and his story, “The Car Smasher,” appeared in the first edition of the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous. He later rewrote it as “He Had To Be Shown” for the second and third editions.

1958: Clancy I. [right] got sober. “I had to just get out of the rain and find a little rest,” Clancy said. “Somebody told me about a place drunks could go.” He walked 72 blocks to a small alcohol rehabilitation center. 

He would leave a lucrative career with a Beverly Hills marketing firm to become managing director of the Midnight Mission in downtown’s skid row, returning as a transformative leader to an institution that had once kicked him out for bad behavior. Under his hand, the soup kitchen and housing facilities would grow with programs to address the social needs of skid row.

1963: Rev. Dr. Samuel Moor Shoemaker [left], 69, died at Burnside, the family home in Green Spring Valley, Maryland, located 10 miles [~16 km] north of Baltimore. In his February 1967 A.A. Grapevine tribute titled “I Stand by the Door,” Bill W. remarked:

Dr. Sam Shoemaker was one of A.A.’s indispensables. Had it not been for his ministry to us in our early time, our Fellowship would not be in existence today.

1974: Sylvia K. S., 68, the first woman to achieve permanent long-term sobriety and author of “Keys to the Kingdom” in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th editions of Alcoholics Anonymous, died in Sarasota, Florida, possibly from emphysema. She was 35 years sober at the time. [Right: obituary from the 1 Nov 1974 Sarasota (FL) Journal, p. 4-A.]

October in A.A. History—day unknown

1985: Dartmouth College’s Alumni Magazine published Rex Roberts’ interview “Thomas V. Seessel ’59: ‘It’s okay to say “No”’” [left], highlighting Seessel’s new role as Executive Director of the National Council on Alcoholism (NCA), founded by Marty M. and Dr. E. M. Jellinek. In the interview, Roberts noted,

The NCA works closely with Alcoholics Anonymous, a separate but better known organization, which helps alcoholics recover through self-help fellowship. (This year marks the 50th anniversary of AA, co-founded by Dartmouth Alumnus Robert Holbrook S―― ’02.)

1988: The A.A. Grapevine, Inc. published The Language of the Heart [right: 1st printing, 1989], a collection, as the Introduction says, of “virtually every article written for the AA Grapevine by Bill W.”

1999: The D.I.A.log, the official newsletter of the Dallas (Texas) Intergroup Association [left: logo], published an interview with Searcy W. In this interview, he discussed his own recovery, Esther E.—whose story, “A Flower of the South,” appears in the 2nd and 3rd editions of the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous—Bill W. and the Twelve Traditions, and Ebby T., who spent several years in Texas with Searcy.

October 30 in A.A. History

1940: The first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in St. Louis—and in the state of Missouri—was held at the Gibson Hotel, 5883 Enright Avenue [right, c. 1940s]. Father Ed Dowling^* had been contacted by F., who claimed that his son-in-law had a drinking problem. However, it turned out that F. himself was the one struggling and seeking help. With Father Ed’s support and encouragement, F. gathered four other individuals and met with them at the Gibson Hotel. In December, they would form the first A.A. group in St. Louis.

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^*Some have suggested that this occurred after Father Edward Dowling returned to St. Louis from New York City, where he had met Bill W. at the 24th Street Clubhouse. However, that meeting did not take place until November 16, more than two weeks later.

1940: After being pressed by Charles McGhee Baxter^*—who went by “McGhee” and was from Richmond, Virginia—for an explanation as to why New York City Alcoholics Anonymous had separated from the Oxford Group three years earlier, Bill W. replied with a quite thorough explanation consisting of eight reasons. Bill Schaberg’s summary in Writing the Big Book follows.

1. The “aggressive evangelism” of the Oxford Group.
2. Their reliance on “excessive personal publicity or prominence.”
3. The unacceptability of the word “absolute” before the virtues of honesty, purity, unselfishness, and love (four virtues that Bill rather testily claimed were “as much practiced [by A.A. members]… as by any other group of people.”)
4. The coercive nature of “guidance for others” and of the subsequent “checking” by those who had received that guidance to ensure that it was being followed.
5. The practice of writing down guidance during ‘quiet time,’ which, according to Bill, “was too often made ridiculous by novices scribbling messages from God in notebooks.”
6. “We found,” he observed with some irritation and judgment, “that the principles of tolerance and love had to be more emphasized in their actual practice than they were in the O.G., especially tolerance.”
7. There could be no “religious requirement” for membership in A.A.
8. The kind of dogmatism demanded by the Oxford Group necessarily precluded Catholics [and others] from joining A.A.

Despite these objections, Bill gave them credit, before subjecting them to his ever-present pragmatism:

I am always glad to say privately that some of the Oxford Group presentation and emphasis upon the Christian message saved my life. Yet it is equally true that other attitudes of the O.G. nearly got me drunk again, and we long since discovered that if we were to approach alcoholics successfully, these would have to be abandoned. Recovery being a life or death matter for most alcoholics, it became a question of adopting that which would work and rejecting that which would not.

In that same letter, Bill was unusually candid about his own beliefs:

By degrees I find that I have become a rather orthodox Christian. But I do not find, at least within our group, that I can better serve God by demanding that anyone agree with me. If I can be used to help people find a consciousness of the Presence of God I hope I shall please Christ quite as much, if I still permit each individual to attach his own label to that experience. Of course this is no final conclusion on my part. I may be entirely wrong, but I fancy Christ Himself would prefer the hottentot^† happily aware of God and usefully serving Him, than He would the most orthodox were he in a state of useless drunkenness. I think Christ would be interested in Christian results rather than Christian professions.

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^*Note that Baxter had been an associate of Frank Buchman and an Oxford Group member. In the spring of 1929 he had been Buchman’s sole companion while sailing to South Africa, where they both stayed for three years.

^†Hottentot was a South African Dutch term for the Khoikhoi (or Khoekhoe) natives. It was said to have originated as hot en tot to be imitative of the clicking, jerking quality of Khoisan speech. By the 1700s in Europe the meaning had been generalized to mean an ill-mannered, filthy, or otherwise uncivilized person. Today it is considered an offensive, derogatory, racist term.

October in A.A. History—day unknown

1977: The A.A. Grapevine published an article titled “Our Primary Purpose And The Special-Purpose Group,” written by Dr. Jack Norris [left, 1973], Chair of the General Service Board. Excerpts follow.

IN RECENT YEARS, no subject seems to have been discussed more often, in more detail, for longer hours, and with more heat than the question of special-purpose groups. Both the advocates and the adversaries of special-purpose groups hold very strong opinions on the subject, and those of us who have tried to occupy the middle ground can see the logic on both sides.

Our Third Tradition says, “The only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking.” In general, we have inclined to this view: When other requirements are added that might seem to exclude some alcoholics, these should be considered AA meetings and not AA groups. We have never discouraged AAs from forming special-purpose meetings of any or all kinds to meet the needs of interested individuals, but we have been hesitant to consider as groups those that might seem to exclude any alcoholic, for whatever reason.…

I mentioned earlier that we have never discouraged special-purpose meetings but have been hesitant to list as groups those that might seem to preclude other alcoholics’ attending. Perhaps we might talk a little bit about the differences between an AA meeting and an AA group. Our directories state: “Traditionally, two or more alcoholics meeting together for purposes of sobriety may consider themselves an AA group, provided that, as a group, they are self-supporting and have no outside affiliation.” And in the beginning of our Fellowship in countries outside the United States and Canada, we agreed on six points that describe what an AA group is. They are:

“(1) All members of a group are alcoholics, and all alcoholics are eligible for membership. (2) As a group, they are fully self-supporting. (3) A group’s primary purpose is to help alcoholics recover through the Twelve Steps. (4) As a group, they have no outside affiliation. (5) As a group, they have no opinion on outside issues. (6) As a group, their public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion, and they maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio-TV, and film.”

In addition, an AA group holds regularly scheduled meetings and has at least an informal structure with several “trusted servants” who serve in rotation, and who look after the meeting room, Twelfth Step calls, literature, program, and refreshments.…

At the 1973 General Service Conference, workshops on “The AA Group” were held and went into overtime, because of lengthy discussion on the subject of special-purpose groups. By request of this Conference, the subject was scheduled for full-scale discussion at the 1974 Conference. The time allotted for it again proved to be insufficient and a special session—lasting four hours—was called. The final action was that the AA General Service Office should list all groups in accordance with the definition of an AA group listed on page 2 of all our directories.

In the final analysis, perhaps, what we are really dealing with in special-purpose groups is communication among AA members and how to improve it so that we can do a better job of carrying the AA message to alcoholics of all kinds.

To the best of my knowledge, this is the earliest definition of an A.A. Group, which I believe ultimately led to the distinction between "real" groups and so-called "meetings."

October 29 in A.A. History

1881: Rowland Gibson Hazard, originally tagged as a “Jr.” [right, 1918], was born into a prominent and immensely wealthy Rhode Island industrial family residing in a colony of estates in Peace Dale (South Kingstown), Rhode Island. He was the oldest of five children born to Rowland Gibson Hazard and Mary Pierrepont Bushnell Hazard. An unbroken line of Hazard men named “Rowland Gibson” dated back to 1763. His father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfather shared that name—most of them using the “Jr.” suffix—prompting this one to adopt the suffix “III” to distinguish himself from his namesakes. The Hazard family’s colonial roots trace back to 1635, with its members being large landowners, manufacturers, and individuals of note in science and literature. They were widely respected as achievers and philanthropists.

In 1934, Rowland would play a prominent role in helping Edwin “Ebby” T. get sober in the Oxford Group.

1929: [Black Tuesday] The U.S. stock market crashed, leaving Bill W. broke and $60,000 in debt [~$1,200,000 in 2026], most likely due to short-trading stock. He and his benefactor, Frank Shaw, parted ways. Later—possibly in November—Bill’s friend Dick Johnson offered him a job in Montreal with the stock brokerage firm Greenshields & Co. [near right: contemporary Greenshields & Co. legal notice, in Montreal’s The Gazette, p. 26; far right: Aldred Building, Montreal, Quebec—home of Greenshields & Co., 1930]. By Christmas, the W——s would be in Canada.

1941: Bill W. spoke in Evansville, Indiana, praising James D. “J.D.” H. as the founder of the first Alcoholics Anonymous group in Indiana, established in Evansville on 23 April 1940, approximately eighteen months prior.

1943: Don F. traveled from Omaha, Nebraska, to make a 12th-Step call on Judge Ray H. at his Des Moines office [below: Des Moines, looking east down Walnut Street from 9th Street, c. 1940s?]. Also present were Bill A. and Herbert L. It turned out that the judge had been dry on his own for a month, while Don F. had only been sober for two weeks.

An immediate stream of lively, witty, and engaging correspondence began between Ray H. and the staff of the Alcoholic Foundation in New York City. Within a month, the letters from Iowa were printed on stationery bearing an “Alcoholics Anonymous” letterhead. Ray adopted the pseudonym “Hildegarde” and began sending the Foundation “News Flashes” and “Bedtime Stories” about the happenings in Des Moines A.A. By its third meeting, the group had grown to 17 members and secured its own P.O. box.

October in A.A. History—day unknown

1961: The A.A. Grapevine [right: cover] published its fourth and final annual international issue.

1967: Bill W. proposes “that G.S.O. launch an inquiry, addressed to overseas areas of largest A.A. population, asking whether they would like, on a tentative basis and only for purposes of exploration, to call a World Service Meeting to be held in New York late in 1969.”

The General Service Conference Charter, written in the late 1940s by Bill W. [far left, 1942] and Class A (non-alcoholic) Alcoholic Foundation Trustee Bernard Smith, Esq. [near left, 1955?] and adopted in 1955, envisioned that the U.S./Canada Conference would eventually have “Sections” in foreign countries. In fact, however, each country had developed its own autonomous service structure.

1967: The South Florida General Service Conference Area (15) passed a motion stating, “that the Bahamas shall become District 16 of the South Florida Area” [right: map showing South Florida and the Bahamas].

October 28 in A.A. History

1918: Bill W. [right: in France, 1919] arrived in France with Battery C, 66th Artillery, Coast Artillery Corps (C.A.C.). The Great War (World War I) would end just 14 days later, on 11 November at 11:11 a.m., but Bill would not return home until May 1919.

1919: The U.S. Senate voted 65–20 to override President Wilson’s veto of the Volstead (National Prohibition) Act the day before; the House had also voted to override on the same day. Sponsored by the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Representative Andrew Volstead [left] of Minnesota, the act implemented the 18th Amendment, which prohibited “intoxicating liquors” without providing a clear definition.

Some members of Congress believed this referred only to hard liquor. However, Wayne Wheeler [right], the head of the Anti-Saloon League, who had actually written the legislation, had crafted it to define intoxicating liquors as any beverage containing more than 0.5% alcohol. The legislation made it illegal to “manufacture, sell, barter, transport, import, export, deliver, furnish, or possess” such beverages, though it did not prohibit their consumption.

1936: William “Bill” C. [left], 36, committed suicide at the home of Bill and Lois W., located at 182 Clinton St., Brooklyn, while the couple was in Maryland visiting Fitz M. and his wife.

Bill C. had been living with the W――s for nearly a year and had been left in charge of the house. A brilliant lawyer from Canada, he worked for a prominent law firm by day and played bridge for money by night. The W――s had rarely seen him and did not know him as well as they did most of their other house guests. His gambling appeared to be an even greater obsession than his drinking.

Bill W. returned home first. Upon opening the front door, he smelled gas. In the kitchen upstairs, he found Bill C.’s body on the floor with a tube from the stove’s gas jet in his mouth. He had been dead for several days. Lois arrived the following day to find that her husband had already taken care of every detail
[left: C―― family burial monument; near right: Daily News article from 29 Oct; far right: Ottawa Journal obituary, 29 Oct.]..

It took several months for Bill and Lois W. to realize that Bill C. had been selling their personal belongings and dress clothes, which were hung in a closet near the hallway bedroom he occupied. Among the missing items were Bill W.’s dress suit, his evening jacket, Lois’s black velvet evening wrap lined with white velvet, and several evening gowns. Suitcases were also missing. These were the relics of the W――s’ once affluent lifestyle. Bill C.’s remorse for these thefts may have contributed to his decision to take his own life.

1940: Doherty “Dohr” S. [left], a retired local businessman, Irish Catholic, and devoutly religious, founded the first Alcoholics Anonymous group in Indianapolis, Indiana. Desperate to stop drinking, Dohr had reached out to the Cleveland group for help. In response, Clarence S. [near right, 1942] had sent Irwin M. [far right], whom Clarence sponsored, to make a 12th-step call on Dohr and guide him in starting this group.

1988: Sociologist Milton A. Maxwell [left], PhD, 81, died. He had served as a Class A (non-alcoholic) Trustee on the General Service Board from 1971 to 1982, including the last four years as Chairman; he had also been an original member of the Trustees’ Archives Committee.

October in A.A. History—day unknown

1959: The A.A. Grapevine [right: cover] published its second annual international issue.

1960: The A.A. Grapevine [left: cover] published a third annual international issue with stories from South Africa, Northern Rhodesia, the Congo, Japan, Indonesia, New Guinea, Tasmania, Australia, Cuba, Trinidad and Jamaica, Saudi Arabia, West Germany, Denmark, Holland, Finland, Ireland, Scotland, and England.