December 7 in A.A. History

In 1934, Ebby took a drunken Bill W. to the Oxford Group meeting at Calvary Church Rescue Mission after Bill had expressed interest the day before. Bill ended up “testifying” from the podium, perhaps even accepting Jesus Christ as his Savior. Amazingly, on the way home, Bill lost all desire to drink and spent the next two days in his bedroom, tapering himself off alcohol.

In 1949, Sister Ignatia accepted the College of Steubenville’s 1st annual Poverel-lo Medal of St. Francis of Assisi on behalf of “the entire fellowship” of Alcoholics Anonymous, in recognition of its “tremendous contribution… to Humanity.”

In 2022, The United Kingdom’s BBC Two premiered the documentary I’m An Alcoholic: Inside Recovery, in which Alcoholics Anonymous (UK) allowed cameras into meetings for the first time, protecting members’ anonymity with deep-fake image, a troubling visual manipulation technique that might actually have demonstrated a positive use here. (The altered faces were unrecognizable to close friends.) The one-off documentary also looked at the organisation’s roots in the pre-World War II United States and discussed its role in modern society. It also recognized A.A.’s 75th anniversary in the UK. The Guardian called it “a sensitive and impeccably balanced documentary.”