February 28 in A.A. History

In 1937, ^*Dick S. [below, near right] regained consciousness in Akron City Hospital after a binge. He later learned that his younger brother Paul [below, middle right], who had been sober for nearly eight months, had given him 5½ ounces of paraldehyde—more than twice the dosage recommended by Dr. Bob [below, far right]. Dick would remain sober for the rest of his life.
    His story, “The Car Smasher,” appeared in the first edition of the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous, and outlined the four-step program he recommended:

First: Have a real desire to quit.
Second: Admit you can’t. (This is the hardest.)
Third: Ask for His ever-present help.
Fourth: Accept and acknowledge this help.

He later rewrote his story, which was retitled “He Had To Be Shown,” for the second and third editions of the Big Book.

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^* “The Car Smasher” begins with, “During the first week of March 1937,… I ended 20 years of a life made practically useless [by drinking].” In contrast, the second-to-last paragraph of “He Had To Be Shown” states, “On Sunday when I came to, it was a bad, wet, snowy day in February 1937…”. Weather records for Akron in February 1937 indicate that temperature ranges were likely too high and precipitation too low for any Sunday to be described as “a bad, wet, snowy day,” except for the 28th. Therefore, I conclude that the Sunday Paul referred to in “He Had To Be Shown” must have been the 28th.

In 1942, the Columbus (Ohio) Group split into two groups. Fourteen members left to establish the Central Group at the Odd Fellows Temple, located at 24 W. Goodale St. This new group decided to install a phone and set up an office at the temple for Twelfth Step calls. Additionally, the Central Group was responsible for printing one of the earliest A.A. newsletters.

In 1942, Ruth Hock [far left] left the New York City Alcoholic Foundation office to marry Phil Crocelius; Margaret “Bobbie” B. [near left] took her place as National Secretary, A.A.’s second and last. Bobbie had been a professional dancer in the U.S. and Europe during the 1920s and, as Ruth noted, in the fashion of the 1940s, wore “tiny little hats and went tripping along in her high heels, but was a fantastic communicator.”

In 1947, the Naugatuck (Connecticut) Daily News reported that Edward McDermott, the executive director of Easy Acres in Newtown, a state sanitarium for neurotics, spoke at a meeting of the Waterbury Junior Club on the topic of “Alcoholism and Alcoholics Anonymous.”