April 3 in A.A. History

1940: The fifth meeting of the Philadelphia Group of A.A. in Pennsylvania was held at Saint Luke’s Hospital. Organized by Drs. A. Weise Hammer [near right] and Dudley Saul [far right], both non-alcoholic, the meeting was open to the public and attended by thirty people.

1941: The first Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.) group in Florida was formally organized in Miami.
    However, the earliest known A.A. contact in Florida was Horace S., a Daytona Beach resident, who contacted the Alcoholic Foundation in November 1939. By July 1942, he had moved to Connecticut, leaving no A.A. members in Daytona Beach.
    In 1940, Frank P., an A.A. member from New York living in Miami, became the local point of contact. That April, Roger C. reached out to the Alcoholic Foundation for assistance. Later, in November, Joe T.’s wife contacted the Foundation, which connected Roger and Joe with Frank P. Together, with the support of traveling salesman and A.A. member Irwin M. [left], they began responding to A.A. inquiries in the Miami area. That same month, Charlie C. wrote to the Foundation inquiring about starting a meeting in Fort Lauderdale, where he moved in December. Carl C. was recruited in December 1940, and informal meetings commenced in Miami.

1958: In a letter to Marjorie W., Bill W. [right] offered his most succinct, mature understanding of the “white light” experience he had 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.

1960: Father Edward Patrick “Ed” Dowling, S.J. [left], 61, died peacefully in his sleep early this Sunday morning in Memphis, Tennessee, from a heart attack. Fr. Ed had struggled with compulsive overeating, consuming excessive amounts of starch, butter, salt, and sugar. Although he once weighed 240 lbs [~110 kg], using strategies based on the Twelve Steps, he had managed to lose 60 lbs [~27 kg]. But unfortunately, he had already caused permanent damage to his heart and arteries. The first sign of these medical problems occurred in June 1952, when he was hospitalized for a retinal stroke caused by a blood clot blocking an artery to his retina.

April 2 in A.A. History

1966: Dr. Harry M. Tiebout [right] died of heart disease in Greenwich, Connecticut. As an early advocate of Alcoholics Anonymous, he served as head psychiatrist at Blythewood Sanitarium, where Margaret “Marty” M., author of “Women Suffer Too” in the first and second editions of Alcoholics Anonymous, and a patient known as “Grennie” C., got sober. Marty, Bill W., and other early A.A. members were among Tiebout’s patients. His paper, “The Ego Factors in Surrender in Alcoholism,” appeared in the December 1954 issue of the Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcohol, now titled the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.

Other significant events in April
               (no specific date known)                

1935: Dr. William Silkworth [far left] advised Bill W. [near left. 1937], “Stop preaching!”
    After several months of struggling to help other alcoholics achieve sobriety, Bill was on the verge of giving up. He spoke with Dr. Silkworth, who urged him to avoid discussing his intense spiritual experience at Towns Hospital the previous December. Instead, he recommended that Bill focus on presenting the dire medical perspective on alcoholism. Specifically, Dr. Silkworth suggested addressing the strong egos of alcoholics by emphasizing the obsession that drives them to drink and the allergy that almost certainly leads to madness or death. The doctor believed this approach would make it easier for Bill’s prospects to accept the spiritual solution.

1935: Bill W. returned to Wall Street and was introduced to Howard Tompkins of Baer and Company. Tompkins brought him into a complex proxy fight for control of the National Rubber Machinery Company [right: typical product] in Akron, Ohio (where, by the way, T. Henry Williams had recently lost his job as Chief Engineer during a reorganization that spring).
    Working with the company’s Secretary and two stock traders, Bill’s group secured a significant number of proxies. However, a rival group in New York City was pursuing the same goal and claimed to hold the balance of power, possessing at least 40 percent of the company’s shares. Bill traveled to Akron to continue the fight, but by early May, it became clear that his group would lose the battle.

1937: After two years and eight months of sobriety, Edwin “Ebby” T. [left] relapsed. Though he would later sober up again at Towns Hospital, his struggle with alcohol would last for the rest of his life. Following his discharge from Towns Hospital, Ebby would join Bill and Lois W. on vacation in July. 

April 1 in A.A. History

1926: Clarence S. [near right, 1942] and Dorothy Wright [far right] married after a three-month courtship.

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.

1944: Marty M. [near right, 1946] moved to New Haven, Connecticut, to establish the National Committee for Education on Alcoholism (NCEA), initially headquartered at Yale University. During this period, Marty lived with the family of Elvin Morton (E.M.) “Bunky” Jellinek [far right]. She also participated in the Yale Summer School of Alcohol Studies, which had begun the year before.

1945: [Easter Sunday] In New York City, Knickerbocker Hospital [left, c. 1940] opened a small ward dedicated to treating alcoholism—the first such facility in a general hospital in the city. This was a significant step, as many general hospitals at the time would not admit alcoholics, requiring doctors to use false diagnoses for admittance.

1950: The Saturday Evening Post published Jack Alexander’s “The Drunkard’s Best Friend” [right, p. 1 of article], 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.

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

1970: A.A.’s General Service Office 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.”

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

1939: Presumably using Hank P.’s car, Bill W. drove from Cornwall, New York, to New York City. He needed to secure enough money to pay the hotel bill for himself, Hank, Ruth Hock, and Dorothy S. The four had been in Cornwall correcting printers’ proofs of the book Alcoholics Anonymous [left], a slow and difficult task based on the hand-edited multilith manuscript. Together, they had only half the cash needed to cover their stay at Cornwall Inn. Bill approached Charles B. “Charlie” Towns [right], the owner of Towns Hospital, where he and Hank had gotten sober, and explained their predicament.
    Bill later wrote, “Mr. Towns was not too favorably impressed when he heard where we stood, but he came through with the [$100] hotel bill and about a hundred dollars to spare.… We all returned to New York in high spirits [$100 then is ~$2,350 in 2026 dollars].”
    Hank’s declaration that God would provide proved correct, though he likely hadn’t imagined the provision would come through Bill’s agency.

1943: The Chicago Daily Tribune reported “State to Open 1st Hospital to Treat Alcoholic Pa­tients” [left: article], saying, in part,

    A state hospital devoted to the treatment of chronic alcoholism will be opened withint a few weeks as a branch of the Chicago State hospital… It will be the first such institution in the history of Illinois.
    The hospital will be headed by Dr. Conrad Sommer, chief medical officer for the welfare department, and his staff will include members of Alcoholics Anonymous, a national group of reformed drunkards who have been successful in reforming others thru group therapy.…
    Such an experiment … has been tried at the Manteno State hospital during the last few months, with nearly twice as many released patients making satisfactory readjustments to normal life as previously.

1947: England’s first known Alcoholics Anonymous meeting occurred at 8 pm in Room 202 of London’s upscale Dorchester Hotel [right, 1931], after Grace O. [left], an A.A. member from New York City, invited several people to attend. The Alcoholic Foundation had requested that she contact individuals in Britain who were 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.
    Attendees at the Dorchester meeting included Grace, Robert “Canadian Bob” B., Chris L. B. (likely the first person in England to achieve sobriety through the A.A. program), Sgt. Vernon W. (an American soldier), and Norman Rees-Watkins (from South Croydon, who was still drinking at the time). Some sources also list 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 her voyage from New York to London).
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 [right, c. 1946] on Mortlake Road in Kew and in various cafés.

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

March 30 in A.A. History

1910: Searcy W. [right], born in Funston, Texas, was the son of James and Etta W.
    A 57-year member of Alcoholics Anonymous, Searcy would attend the Yale School of Alcohol Studies in 1948 at Bill W.’s encouragement, and later graduate. In 1950, he would establish the Texas Clinic-Hospital for Alcoholism in Dallas [left, c. 1990]. Ebby Thacher would sober up at this facility in 1953 and remain sober for the better part of the next 13 years.
    Searcy’s motto was, “Trust God, clean house, help others,” often adding, “… and it doesn’t have to be done in that order!”

1939:  Bill W., Hank P., Ruth Hock, and Dorothy S. [right, respectively] spent a second day in Cornwall, New York, correcting the proofs of Alcoholics Anonymous as they came off the press. The corrections were so numerous that Cornwall Press charged Works Publishing an additional $33 [~$776 in 2026], itemized on the bill as “Author’s corrections,” totaling 13.2 hours at $2.50 [~$59 in 2026] per hour. With the task finally finished, they discovered they had only half the money needed to pay the hotel bill, forcing them to stay another night. Hank, ever confident, declared that God would provide, reasoning that if God wanted something done, all they had to do was incur the expenses, which He would ultimately cover.

March 29 in A.A. History

1939: Armed with the fully annotated multilith copy of the Big Book—complete with corrections—Hank P. [near right] drove Bill W. [middle right, 1937] and Ruth Hock [far right] 60 miles [97 km] north to Cornwall, New York, where Cornwall Press [left, early 1900s] was to print the book. Although the manager initially insisted on a clean, typed copy, Hank persuaded him to accept the marked-up manuscript. He promised that they would correct the galley proofs as they came off the press. In hindsight, Ruth explained that they all went because “we couldn’t afford anyone to correct the pages as they came off [the press, and] edit them….” Moreover, only these three could have handled the task.
    Bill recalled that Dorothy Wright S. [right], Clarence’s wife, joined them on this trip, but Ruth clarified that Dorothy was in town from Cleveland, Ohio, visiting her sister, and when she had called Bill, he had invited her to meet them in Cornwall, which she did. The four of them spent the day correcting proofs, shared dinner, and then retired to three hotel rooms [left: the Cornwall Inn, where they stayed]. 
    Ruth and Dorothy “immediately developed a perfect rapport,” which was fortunate since they shared the third room, which contained 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 sitting on the bed between the two women. It was entirely 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.”

1943: According to the Charleston Daily Mail, Bill W. spoke at St. John’s Parish House. This meeting, established by Irwin “Irv” M., may have been the first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in West Virginia.

Note 1: St. John's Parish House may be associated with St. John's Episcopal Church [right, c. 1901], located at 1105 Quarrier St. in Charleston. The church was built in 1884, and 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 A.A. groups.

March 28 in A.A. History

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.

The Catholic Digest later condensed and republished this article (Vol. 9, No. 7, May 1945, pp. 79-80).

1946: In a letter to the Alcoholic Foundation’s General Service Office (GSO) in New York City, John “Captain Jack” Bolton Soggett [left: as a young man], a newly sober skipper of a Socony-Vacuum oil tanker [right: such a tanker from Captain Jack’s era], requested information on Alcoholics Anonymous contacts. He explained that, after ten years of service, 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.”
    In response, a G.S.O. staff member provided 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 outreach marked the beginning of The Internationalists in A.A.