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.

---

^*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.

---

^*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.

October 27–31 in A.A. History

2024: The 28th biennial World Service Meeting was held at the Westin at Times Square Hotel [left] in New York City. The meeting’s theme was “The Three Legacies in the Digital Era: Our Great Responsibility to the Alcoholic Being Born Today” [right: Final Report cover]. Seventy-four delegates represented forty-nine General Service structures:

Argentina     Australia     Belgium (Dutch-Speaking)     Bolivia     Brazil     Bulgaria     Central America/Southern Zone     Chile     Colombia     Czech Republic     Denmark     Dominican Republic     Ecuador

Finland     French-Speaking Europe     German-Speaking Europe     Great Britain     Greece     Guatemala     Honduras     Hong Kong     Hungary     Iceland     India     Iran

Ireland     Italy     Japan     Latvia     Lithuania     Mexico     Netherlands     New Zealand     Norway     Paraguay     Peru     Poland

Portugal     Romania     Russia     Slovakia     Slovenia     South Africa     Spain     Sweden     Turkey     U.S./Canada     Uruguay     Venezuela

October in A.A. History—day unknown

1956: The AA Exchange Bulletin [far left: p. 1; near left: excerpt, p. 4] included some unusual news:

Mates Disband, But Not Wives

When a four-member group in the U. S. Midwest “disintegrated” recently, the four wives involved refused to give up. They ordered copies of the Grapevine and other A.A. literature to have on hand “just in case” their husbands begin to take the program seriously.

1957: Bill W.’s Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age [right: 1st edition cover] was published as a retrospective historical account. It serves as a formal record of the growth of Alcoholics Anonymous, tracing its development from 1935 through the 1955 St. Louis Convention, which marked the organization’s “coming of age.” Bill concluded Part I, “When A.A. Came of Age,” by reflecting on a personal consequence of the 1955 Convention:

Clearly my job henceforth was to let go and let God. Alcoholics Anonymous was at last safe—even from me.

1958: The AA Exchange Bulletin [right: p. 1 with article highlighted] reported that the A.A. Grapevine published its first annual international issue [left: magazine cover], noting:

‘GRAPEVINE’ GOES GLOBAL

Twenty-nine different datelines ranging from the Fiji Islands to French Morocco are featured in the first “International” issue of The A.A. Grapevine being distributed this month.

An additional 3,000 copies of this issue of the A.A. Grapevine were sold.

1959: The A.A. Grapevine [left: cover] published an article by Captain Jack (John S.) [right: as a young man] titled “From Captain Jack to His Buddies,” in which he reminisced about his 13 years of sobriety. A native of Maine, he was the skipper of a Socony Vacuum oil tanker [below: oil tanker like the one Captain Jack skippered]; he had gotten sober in A.A. in 1947. He maintained his sobriety by exchanging letters with groups he helped establish around the world. In 1949, he organized the Internationalist’s Seamen Group. That same year he created A.A.’s “The Internationalists Round Robin,” which eventually evolved into what is now the “Loners-Internationalists Meeting” (LIM), a confidential bimonthly bulletin featuring excerpts from LIM members’ letters sent to the General Service Office (GSO) for Loners, Homers, Internationalists, Port Contacts, and Loner Sponsors.

October 26 in A.A. History

1937: Dr. Leonard V. Strong [near right], brother-in-law of Bill W. [middle right], married to Bill’s sister Dorothy, wrote him a letter introducing Bill to Rev. Willard S. Richardson [far right]:

Dear Mr. Richardson,

This will serve to introduce my brother-in-law, Mr. William W—–, of whom I spoke in our telephone conversation yesterday.

His work with alcoholics appears very effective and I think merits your interest and possibly that of the Rockefeller Foundation.

Your courtesy in seeing him is greatly appreciated by me, and I regret my inability to be present.

Bill would meet Richardson shortly afterward in his 56th-floor office in the RCA building [left, 1937]. Richardson was warmly cordial; Bill described him as “an elderly gentleman who had twinkling eyes set in one of the finest faces I have ever seen.” He showed deep interest as Bill shared his own story and that of the struggling Fellowship.

1939: The Cleveland Plain Dealer (Ohio) published the final article [right] in Elrick B. Davis’s five-part series titled “Alcoholics Anonymous Makes Its Stand Here.” It read, in part:

It is hard for the skeptical to believe that no one yet has found a way to muscle into Alcoholics Anonymous, the informal society of ex-drunks that exists only to cure each other, and make a money-making scheme of it. Or that someone will not. The complete informality of the society seems to be what has saved it from that. Members pay no dues. The society has no paid staff. Parties are “Dutch.” Meetings are held at the homes of members who have houses large enough for such gatherings, or in homes of persons who may not be alcoholics but are sympathetic with the movement.

1939: The Alcoholic Foundation in New York City, presumably Ruth Hock [far left], wrote a letter to John “Fitz” M. [middle left], a “loner” living in Washington, DC. The letter referred another Washington “loner,” Hardin C. [near left?], to Fitz. Within days, the Washington Group of A.A., the first in that city, will be established out of the contact between these two men.

October in A.A. History—day unknown

1955: The A.A. Grapevine [left: cover] published an article by Rev. Samuel Moore Shoemaker [near right] titled “The Spiritual Angle of AA” [far right] which addressed a challenge faced by the founders of A.A.: “…how to translate the spiritual experience into universal terms without allowing it to evaporate into mere ideals and generalities.” He began his discussion of this issue by saying,

The basis of this belief was not theoretical, it was evidential. Before us were people in whose lives the beginnings of a transformation had taken place. You could question the interpretation of the experience, but you could not question the transformation itself.… AA has been supremely wise to emphasize the reality of the experience and to acknowledge the experience, and to acknowledge that it came from a Higher Power than human, and then leave it at that.

1956: The A.A. Grapevine [left: cover] published an article titled “Tranquilizers…!?” [right]. The teaser read:

THEY CALL THEM “A SAFE NEW DRUG” – Voice-of-experience report…

The author, B.R. from New York City, began his article:

PERHAPS THEY ARE for the “civilians” but for us, they may spell trouble. They did for me, anyway. Going under various names—thorazine, mebaral, sedamyl, butiserpine, nembu-serpin, equanil, dimethylane, butibel, miltown, sparine, reserpine, to name a few—these medical discoveries are also known as “mood pills”, “don’t-give-a-damn pills” (Time, Feb 24) and are supposed to help those with an anxiety, nervousness, tensions, etc.

We can speak only for ourselves and I say: “Don’t!” Even though these pills must be prescribed by a doctor, “Don’t!”

The author then describes his or her experience taking two such drugs, prescribed by “alcoholic-specializing psychiatrists,” who said “they are non-habit-forming, and harmless.” This led to “eight weeks of pure mental hell” until someone “Twelfth-Stepped me back to sanity.”

An editorial note at the end states, “… we take no official ‘stand’ on tranquilizers (or any other form of medical therapy). We do plan to publish, from time to time, personal experiences such as this one.”

The October 1956 issue of the AA Exchange Bulletin referred readers [right] to this Grapevine article and noted,

Should A.A. members use the new so-called “tranquilizer” drugs? That’s the big question in the featured article in the October A.A. Grapevine. The report describes what happened to a “typical alcoholic” when he sought tranquility through pills.

October 25 in A.A. History

1939: The Cleveland Plain Dealer (Ohio) published the fourth article [right] in Elrick B. Davis’s five-part series titled “Alcoholics Anonymous Makes Its Stand Here.” It read, in part,

What gets the pathological drinker who finally has reached such state that he is willing to listen to a cured rummy member of Alcoholics Anonymous, is that the retrieved alcoholic not only understands what only another alcoholic can understand, but a great deal that the unreformed drunk thinks no one else could know because he has never told anyone, and his difficulties or escapades must be private to his own history.

Fact is the history of all alcoholics is the same; some have been addicts longer than others, and some have painted brighter red patches around the town — that is all. What they have heard in the “cure” hospitals they have frequented, or from the psychoanalysts they have consulted, or the physicians who have tapered them off one bender or another at home, has convinced them that alcoholism is a disease. But they are sure (a) that their version of the disease differs from everyone else’s and (b) that in them it hasn’t reached the incurable stage anyway.…

He presents his excuses to the retrieved alcoholic who has come to talk. Can’t sleep without liquor. Worry. Business troubles. Debt. Alimentary pains. Overwork. Nerves too high strung. Grief. Disappointment. Deep dark phobic fears. Fatigue. Family difficulties. Loneliness.

The catalog has got no farther than that when the member of Alcoholics Anonymous begins rattling off an additional list.

“Hogwash,” he says. “Don’t try those alibis on me. I have used them all myself.”

2007: Joe McQ. [left], the original “Joe” of the “Joe & Charley Big Book Studies,” died at 78.

October in A.A. History—day unknown

1953: At a meeting of English-speaking and Belgian alcoholics in Brussels, the capital of Belgium^* [left: Sint-Joost-Ten-Noode, a municipality of the Brussels-Capital Region, just NE of the City of Brussels. 1953], Jean L. (a French speaker) introduced the book Alcoholics Anonymous and the principles of the A.A. program. Within months, A.A. groups were meeting not only in the Belgian capital but also in cities and towns throughout Flanders and Wallonia.

---

^* Belgium is multilingual, having three official languages—Dutch (1st language of ~50%, 2nd of ~13%), French or Belgian French (1st language of ~36%, 2nd of ~46%), and German (1st language of ~1%, 2nd of ~17%)—and, unofficially, four Romance languages (Walloon, Picard, Champenois, Lorraine), two Germanic languages (Marollian or Marois, Yiddish), three Dutch dialects (Brabantian, West Flemish, East Flemish), two German dialects (Limburgish, Luxembourgish), and three sign languages (French Belgian, Flemish, German). A number of foreign languages are also in use, mostly as second languages (population percentages given in parentheses): English (~49–58%), Spanish (~4–9%), Italian (~4%), Arabic (~2–3%), Russian (~2%), Polish (~1%), Portuguese (~1%), and Turkish (~1%) [right: ethnic/linguistic map of Belgium].

1954: The Alcoholic Foundation was renamed the General Service Board of Alcoholics Anonymous.

1954: The Al-Anon Family Groups Clearing House was incorporated as Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, Inc.

1954: Arthur M., co-founder of A.A. in Argentina, died suddenly. By that time, a small group of eight A.A. members had formed in Buenos Aires.